The patriarchal norms that inform misogyny and sexism don’t do boys and men any favors. A lot of the issues in gaming are tied to sexual objectification and denigration of girls.
But we should likewise be talking about what it means to dehumanize boys and men. We don’t really talk about boys and men as violence objects. Those things are interrelated, especially as they are manifested in gaming.
As a society and as parents and adults, we have failed to educate them, and I think that we’ve left young men woefully unprepared in ways that end up being harmful — not only to women, but to themselves.
If you start talking about what it means to separate violence from masculinity, you really have to accept the fact that maybe feminists have some good ideas, which people are not that willing to do.
I would like to see an expansion on this.
A. there are more women going into higher ed and earning their degrees than men
B. there are more women in the workforce than men
As women have gained more power and we're transitioning from single-income households (not that this had to do with women's lib, but employers realized they could get 2 employees for 1 if wages remained stagnant; supply/demand), men are feeling left behind.
Much time has been spent saying "toxic masculinity," but I find very little writing about what
healthy masculinity looks like.
Games marketed themselves into a corner by talking about themselves as
being something for dudes, by dudes. If an industry segments itself to white dudes of a certain age and a certain income bracket, it’s going to reach a saturation point.
Yo I remember seeing
Every. Last. One. of those ads in video game magazines. I'm not afraid to say that I might have rubbed one out or two to them as well. And that's before addressing what you could see in PC Accelerator.
*AHEM*
When I first started at GameSpot, there were men, readers, who responded with comments literally saying that women should only exist in the games media to be attractive to men. And [that] by [me] not fitting into their definition of attractive, GameSpot had betrayed this idea by hiring me. They had hired a woman who fell outside the narrow purpose of women in this space.
Those people who complained are not interested in our perspectives, our experiences, our opinions, but just to be “hot” for them.
Speaking of Gamer Gater culture, this reminds me of "ComicsGate," the gist of which can be observed here:
They can say that these are “just games,” and that they have no impact beyond themselves. But the attitudes about women, and the roles women have in the world, are influenced by the fantasy that games offer.
They have this idea that gaming is like a magic circle that they enter, where they enjoy a fantasy, and then they come out of it into the real world without having been influenced at all. It doesn’t work like that.
I've seen people say stuff like this on post-#ShowerGate Gaf almost verbatim. "I just want to talk about games." "I don't want politics in my games."
The don't really consider how
play and
discourse overlap, which is why the tone of OT comes over here (See: that thread about the Kingdom Come gameamentuary; some folks who have no real interest in the game or the documentary still pat the devs on the back for being "anti-SJW").
Hegemonic or traditional masculinity is often constructed in terms of physical strength, good looks, cognitive hardness, minimal emotion. This is the sort of masculinity that is often portrayed in the media: the strong and silent hero who rescues the girl.
Men who are seen as “nerdy” are often persecuted for not adhering to these norms. However, instead of rejecting this traditional masculine construct and pursuing alternative forms of masculinity, it seems that some nerdy men are doubling down on the one bit of traditional masculinity that is available to them, which is technological competence.
What I think is happening with this line of thinking is that if technology becomes the domain of women, that puts their masculinity at risk. This is why they are so intent on keeping technology as the purview of men. It’s where they see themselves as having dominance and control.
INCELS
There's also a term that alt-righters/incels use for the guys who get all the girls, but I forget the nomenclature.
Adding blackness to anything
will upset people. Every time black characters are given top billing in games, you get an uprising from, I’m going to assume, young white dudes or folks who feel like they are losing some kind of exposure.
...
There are a lot of people in the gaming establishment who are afraid to speak up. Game companies don’t want to alienate what they think is their base.
...
There’s a
story mode in the latest Madden game. When it turned out that the main character was a black guy, we had a whole bunch of white folks on the internet who are like, “Well, what if I wanted to be me? Why can’t I be a white dude in this game?”
My answer to that was: Why can’t we have a story about a character who just happens to be black? Then if you want to compound that with the actual statistics of
who is in the NFL, then we can have that conversation as well. But people don’t like statistics, and they don’t like truth.
I have nothing to add.
I played
Friday the 13th and saw how
African-American characters were targeted to be killed, while white characters were left alone. I challenged someone for calling me the N-word, and I got banned.
Imagine being so racist that you find new, ****ed up, digital ways to be a POS.
We saw in
Charlottesville that there are people who just want to have a white nationalist nation away from everyone else. They think that America is that place. That goes back a long time, but I think it’s also wrapped up in a lot of other narratives, including the internet and games.
Over my dead body and those of at least four living generations between my side of the family and my wife's.
Edit: Posted on accident.
Look at the narrative around GamerGate. There’s hardly any mention of people of color. It’s all about
three people who are either white or white-passing.
*takes a long, hardy sip of tea*
They’re starting to freak out because they feel deeply entitled to this space. They talk about it like the last bastion of masculinity. Like, ‘
These feminazis have taken everything from us, now they are coming for our games.’
This sense of privilege is tied to patriarchy as well. It’s not just games. Men are told in our society that they should get fast cars and hot women and good jobs. And when they don’t get those things, they attack women they perceive as being successful.
One of the ways they attack me is by saying that I’m rich. Because I had a successful Kickstarter, they claimed that I was loaded and I was a trust fund kid. They concoct these wild conspiracy theories as a way for them to demonize women because these men don’t have what they think they should have.
LoL, Anita swinging haymakers.
WHY DO SO MANY MEN IN GAMING EXHIBIT A PERSECUTION COMPLEX?
**Moderator edited**
They pull out all kinds of facts and figures about why white men are the most persecuted in Western society. They really believe it, and will jump on anything that allows them to embrace that persecuted identity more fully.
Word?
(I knew this)
The current discourse about the alt-right in America is showing that these aren’t social outcasts, but people in the neighborhood. It’s Joe who always picks his kids up from school, whose wife makes the best cookies.
It’s no longer useful to paint these individuals as a kind of Unabomber hiding out in the woods. They’re your boss at work, or the guy that you go to lunch with.
They seem like regular dudes, but they are holding this mentality that comes out when they’re on the internet.
No ****! We got some here.
Gonna have to reply to the rest in a part 2.
