Video games are notorious for being a male dominated culture. Even though the statistics show that this is changing, video game culture, especially that on consoles and PCs, is still very male oriented. Juvenile actions and thoughts regarding women can be seen throughout gaming, from the depiction of women to the words spoken by both players and in-game. And in large part, these things are either ignored, glossed over, or casually accepted. This is unacceptable. The excuses that this is how gaming is, or that people should just deal with it, or any other reason is not valid. This type of culture is wrong, and it is time for it to change.
Although this is not a new problem, certain recent events and topics have caused me to become quite interested in this issue. Here is a small sampling of articles and instances which deal with this issue.
1. Capcom produces Cross Assault, a reality show designed to show off the new Tekken X Street Fighter game. In this show, a male coach verbally abuses a female player on his own team. The excuses produced to justify this behavior is frankly insulting and horrifying.
When Passions Flare, Lines Are Crossed
2. Although largely heralded by the gaming community for presenting a more adult and progressive game in the form of Mass Effect, large swaths of BioWare's scifi epic still contain large amounts of sexists material. 1up published a short article dealing with the most glaring examples from Mass Effect 2, and pretty much hits the nail on the head. Although well written and reasoned, the responses to the article highlight the fallacies and hypocrisy in the gaming community.
The Sexism of Mass Effect 2
3. On a lighter note, Doctor Nerd Love has published a series of articles dealing with male privilege in nerd culture. Highly informative and brutally honest, these articles serve as great critiques of nerd and gaming culture and exposes a large number of the straw man arguments and excuses made to justify these actions.
Nerds and Male Privilege
4. Lastly, another piece taking on nerd culture and sexism is a video produced by Movie Bob. This video relates back to the Cross Assault incident, and like Doctor Nerd Love, takes nerd and gamer culture to task on its problems and hypocrisy.
Movie Bob - The Big Picture
The first two articles here highlight the problems that nerd culture has regarding women while the second two deal with these problems and demonstrate how things need to change. And while the first two are disheartening, the second two show that things can, and should, change. For project 4 I would like to delve more into these issues, why they exist, how they are expressed, and what can be done about them. If video games are to grow and mature, these issues must be dealt with. If gaming is moving out of the basement, than so should its culture.
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