Month: November 2011

WHERE TO START

wundergeek Miscellany

[Note: this is a work in progress. Don’t be surprised if you see this changed/expanded in the next little while.]

Hi, there. If you’ve found your way here, it’s probable that you fit into one of two categories; either you were linked to this blog somewhere , or you’re someone looking for material to address a certain point regarding sexism in gaming. Since the two cases are pretty different, I’ll address them separately.

If you identify as a feminist or ally, great! Welcome! Please read this guide here that will help you find your way around.

If you don’t feel you identify as a feminist or ally, that’s great, too! You can read this post right here addressing possibilities for why you were linked here. It’ll also give you some good directions for where to get started even if you weren’t linked here and are just curious.

Before we start: this isn’t about you

There are a lot of popular misconceptions out there regarding sexism in the gaming world. A lot of the time, it can be hard to confront the reality that something we love can be sexist, because that might mean that we are sexist for liking it, right? So let me be clear that this blog isn’t about judging people for their individual tastes. It’s about judging people who systematically stereotype and dehumanize women for personal gain and profit – the devs, the game studios, the game artists, and even the game journalists. This blog isn’t about judging you. That would be useless and counter-productive, to say the least.

Now let’s move on…

Before we move on to anything else, you should really read the original article that I wrote looking at unequal depictions of women in game art of all kinds. The article clearly lays out how women are consistently under-represented, depicted in more sexualized outfits, and depicted in more passive and less combat-able roles in game art from all areas of gaming. This includes an exhaustive number of numbers, charts, and a clear description of my methodology and reasoning should anyone wish to try to reproduce my results.

It might be that you find yourself having disagreements with things set out in the article. And that’s cool. I suggest reading this post here, which responds to the most common arguments I received against the results I set out.

Other categories that might interest you could include…

numbers:

Once you’ve read the initial article, you might be interested in reading follow-up posts that use the same methods applied to other areas of gaming. To that end, any of my posts tagged as “numbers“ will help you out, but here’s a list of specific posts for those of you looking for something in particular:

doing it wrong

One of the biggest issues that plagues women in game art is the way in which they are frequently distorted beyond what is anatomically possible in order to emphasize their sexy bits so as to appeal to a presumed straight male viewer. The reason this is problematic is because video game men get anatomy+ – anatomy in which certain characteristics are emphasized and exaggerated in order to make them heroic. But video game women get anatomy-, literally becoming less human in order to be read as heroic.

These depictions become so ubiquitous that we often have trouble seeing just how inhuman a lot of these video game women have become. So one of the things that I make a point of doing here is using my knowledge of anatomy to analyze game art and illustrate just how impossibly distorted video game women are and explain the many reasons why they simply couldn’t exist in real life.

gender swap

Something else you might find helpful in learning about the unequal depictions of women in game art are posts in which I took female video game characters in sexualized poses and costumes and swapped their gender to turn them into men. I could write 10,000 words about why the things we take for granted in our depictions of women are actually pretty ridiculous, but this is an instance where a picture is worth (at least) 1000 words.

Other excellent places to start

Here are some other miscellaneous posts that can serve as a good jumping-off point for understanding common gaming-related gender fails:

HOW TO USE THIS BLOG: FEMINISTS AND ALLIES

wundergeek Miscellany

[Note: This is a work in progress, folks. Don’t be surprised if you see this expanded, added to, or changed]

Hi, there. If you’ve found your way here, it’s probable that you fit into one of two categories; either you were linked to this blog somewhere , or you’re someone looking for material to address a certain point regarding sexism in gaming. Since the two cases are pretty different, I’ll address them separately. If you don’t feel you identify as a feminist or ally, please be sure to read this post addressing possibilities for why you were linked here.

User’s Guide: feminists or allies looking for posts about a specific issue

Maybe you’re having an argument with someone about some crappy aspect of gaming that is sexist. Reactions that you’ll typically get might fall into one of three categories: 1) you can’t get the other person to believe you (‘facts or it didn’t happen’) 2) they flail defensively at strawmen 3) they try to justify the sexism as not being a big deal.

If you’re dealing with numbers 2 or 3, there’s a good chance you’re dealing with a lost cause. You’re welcome to look for pertinent rebuttals here, but don’t expect too much. You’re much more likely to have success with gamers who don’t agree that sexism in gaming doesn’t exist because they’re not personally aware of it. And that’s okay. Hopefully they can be persuaded to at least see your point of view.

Categories that will be the most helpful:

numbers:

If you’re looking for hard numbers on “this is how women compare to men in game art”, any of my posts tagged as “numbers“ will help you out, but here’s a list of specific posts for those of you looking for something in particular:

doing it wrong

This is a bit more general of a tag, mostly applied to anatomy of game art but also applied to anything spectacularly fail worthy concerning the bodies of women in games and/or game art. If you’re looking for a more general post about gaming and anatomy fail, “doing it wrong” will help you out. If you’re looking for one of my posts in which I actually draw over fail-worthy game art and correct the anatomy, then you can see one of these posts:

On a semi-related note, you might also be interested in these posts about famous game artists that I hate:

blogosphere

One of my most general tags, this pretty much covers “shit that happens on the internet”. There’s a lot of stuff tagged as “blogosphere” worth reading, but some people in particular on the internet I have singled out as worthy of criticism, if not outright scorn. Here are some internet-famous people I have criticized here on my blog:

gender swap

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. Posts tagged as “gender swap” are those in which I took female video game characters in sexualized poses and costumes and swapped their gender to turn them into men in order to illustrate how what we take for granted in our depictions of women is actually pretty ridiculous:

You might also be looking for…

It might be that you’re looking for something that doesn’t fit into one of these categories. Here are some other frequently-linked posts that are harder to categorize:

INTRODUCTION

wundergeek Miscellany

The genesis of this blog came from an article that I wrote for See Page XX examining prevalence of sexist depictions of women in different areas of gaming. Before you read anything else here, you should really go read the article. (Yes it’s important enough to link twice.) If you find yourself wanting to argue with the article, please read this post here elucidating common arguments against my findings and clarifying some points regarding my criteria and methods.

My goal is to make this a place you can point people to regarding specific issues pertaining to sexism in gaming.

If this is your first time visiting my blog, welcome! If you don’t want to read chronologically, consider checking out this guide on how to use this blog. If you’re a feminist or ally looking for a specific post to use as a reference, then visit this guide here.