Acid for Blood

Parkour and Gender

I'm still playing Mirror's Edge. Free time has not been so readily available. Another reason for my slow progress is that I'm masochistically attempting to complete the game without firing a weapon. I also really suck at platformers, and a first-person platformer is even more difficult for me. Mirror's Edge is not nearly as frustrating a platformer as Castlevania: The Adventure for the GameBoy, which is one of the most difficult, frustrating, and unforgiving platformers I have ever played, but Mirror's Edge at times skirts the same level of frustration. I'm sticking with it because I really like the game.

The design team of Mirror's Edge drew a lot of inspiration from practitioners of parkour, an activity which stresses practicality and efficiency, and challenges traceuses (women) and traceurs (men) to get from one point to another in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

Today, I read an article called, "Parkour: Issues of Gender" which discusses gender issues in parkour culture. The article begins by stating that parkour culture, which is a gender-neutral activity and espouses a philosophy of universality, is male-dominated and has become masculinised:

...the image of Parkour has heavily coincided with conceptions of Western masculine heteronormative behaviour. While the media is largely at fault for this, the Parkour community has also played a role.

...it is important to note that almost all male bodies portrayed in the mass media of Parkour have been spectacularized. 

It is often said that competition is a natural and inherent trait to the human species, and one can find intense competitiveness when looking at anything from football to dance to placement in a symphony. While this is true, direct competition is culturally engendered as masculine, despite the sex of the parties involved.

The article then goes on to discuss participation in parkour by women, in a section that echoes many an industry article regarding how many women work in the videogame industry:

It goes without saying that because few women get involved in the discipline, even fewer step up to play a leadership role. Yes, there are a few scattered here and there, who work largely under the radar for whatever reason. Ultimately, without female representation, less women will be inclined to become involved.

It discusses the differences between male and female bodies and how this may affect interest in parkour by women. Many women interested in parkour erroneously believe that they will build up muscle mass equivalent to men if they get involved in the activity; they are concerned about looking too masculine. Objectification of women in parkour culture, also something that we experience in the games industry (and everywhere else, really) was also touched upon:

Traceuse or not, women are rendered cultural spectacles. So much of “femininity” is derived in appearance, in making up what is “femininity.” It is when we see this that we understand that gender is a cultural fiction, because a woman must assert her femininity on the outside.

Quite simply, when it is spectacularized, the value of Parkour as a whole is diminished. All we do and all we have worked for, in a single instant, is trivialized into obscurity and meaningless cultural babble.

The concern for traceuses is that they will be initially and immediately spectacularized, and in a completely different manner than traceurs. This is often, in popular culture, referred to as “objectification.”

The author states that parkour is an activity for both sexes, all genders, all people, and for it to have such a masculine culture and to be so male-dominated goes against those principles, therefore practitioners should have more awareness of gender issues gender equality within the discipline.

I thought the article was quite interesting and a good read.

It's interesting that DICE decided to go with a female protagonist in Mirror's Edge, given that parkour culture is so male-dominated, but not so surprising considering their goal:

We’ve spent time in developing Faith. And the important thing for us was that she was human, that she was more real. 

We really wanted to get away from the typical portrayal of women in games, that they’re all just kind of tits and ass in a steel bikini. We wanted her to look athletic and fit and strong [enough] that she could do the things that she’s doing.

I for one am glad that DICE chose to have a female lead in the game, and made the decision to depict Faith in a more realistic and far less sexualised and objectified way as compared to other female videogame protagonists. Hurrah for DICE!

[Read via Iris Gaming Network]

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed delivered the main thing I wanted and expected out of this game: to be a super powerful bad ass character that uses Force powers to kill and destroy stuff. I finished it about a month ago on Apprentice and got the Jedi ending.

The game play stayed true to what I experienced in the demo. My main problem with the game play was that sometimes I found myself fighting enemies off screen. This was irritating, however I got used to it. One game play feature I wasn't too keen on was the timed button combinations you needed to execute to do special moves on bosses. I didn't like it in the Resident Evil 4 demo, and I don't like it in this game.

(The following isn't a spoiler because you can see the battle right on the back of the game box.)

An irritating game play moment was the battle with the Imperial Star Destroyer. It was prolonged and tedious after all previous boss fights, which were much faster paced. Having said that, I felt accomplished after I finally brought that thing down.

The graphics were superb on the PS3. I had no complaints at all. The art design looked and felt like Star Wars, though I didn't particularly care for the bright hues of the jungle planet, and the dull metal hues of the junk planet were also not too appealing. However, the two locations did provide a nice contrast to the Imperial levels. I really appreciated all the graphical and artistic details in the game. I really liked Starkiller's costumes. The costumes and clothing in the whole game were really, really cool. Sometimes I would just stop playing and just pan the camera around Starkiller to get a better look at his clothes, and it was the same with the environments. The art team did a great job in bringing the Star Wars universe to life in this game.

The story was not nearly as good as the hype would lead one to believe, but I didn't believe the hype anyway, so I wasn't let down. I should probably play it again to get the Sith ending, and while it is a really fun game, I am feeling a little lazy to do that at the moment. One thing I also would have liked to have seen in the game is the use of Force powers for creation (healing) rather than destruction. Isn't the Force supposed to be able to do both? (Star Wars nerds, please correct me.)

I don't like the fact that the only unlockable characters you can play are male. Why do we get to play as Bail Organa, but not Leia Organa? Bail Organa. He's not that huge of a character in the Star Wars universe compared to Leia Organa. We can unlock and play as a number of different Stormtroopers, but not the other major character in the game, Juno Eclipse? Irritating. What would have been cool is if you could choose your sex and have the two actors play either of the two main roles, depending on which sex you chose. However, I speculate that if they wanted to have this option, it would have incurred additional time and cost, because they'd have to create another combat/animation rig for a female, because the body frame isn't the same, plus they'd have to do everything related to both sexes twice -- clothing, etc. I'm not a game designer, so I'm just guessing.

I also honestly don't see why Starkiller couldn't have been female. The character of Starkiller is pretty much the standard, boring white male with hardly any personality to speak of, which is typical for videogame protagonists. Since he had no personality to start with, they could have had this character be a woman just as easily as a man. The only reason you don't have a choice for gender is because yet again, male is the default and female the afterthought -- or not considered at all. There's no valid reason why Starkiller couldn't have been female. Rather than start off with male as a default, they could have decided at the very, very beginning that Starkiller was a woman.

Details aside, I quite enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

The Woman Effect

I wasn't actually sure how to relate this year's Blog Action Day topic to gaming in a way that didn't belittle the topic's seriousness or complexity. The topic is poverty. Poverty is such a huge, complex mess of inter-related issues. Gaming and entertainment seem trivial compared to very basic security needs such as food, shelter, freedom from violence, and access to health care. As gamers know, this medium can be very compelling, and if applied correctly games can be a force for education, which can (eventually) spark real change. I did some research and I found several games that aim to educate people, typically children, about poverty. You can check out a selection of these games at Games for Change - Poverty.

As I continued to research issues that relate to poverty, and there are so many, I came across a video called The Girl Effect:

The Girl Effect initiative seeks to address poverty by focusing on adolescent girls as change agents. Their reasoning is that if we provide opportunities and empower girls, it will benefit society as a whole. I did a bit of research into the company that produced this video, and it turns out that the Nike Foundation is responsible for the Girl Effect initiative. It's pretty ironic, because Nike is well-known for their reprehensible labour practices. Having said that, it's good that Nike are highlighting the oppression of women.

Poverty disproportionately affects women:

70 per cent of the world's poor are women. The majority of the 1.5 billion people living on $1 a day or less are women.

According to the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, women living in poverty are often denied access to critical resources such as credit, land and inheritance. Their labour goes unrewarded and unrecognized. Their health care and nutritional needs are not given priority, they lack sufficient access to education and support services, and their participation in decision-making at home and in the community are minimal. Caught in the cycle of poverty, women lack access to resources and services to change their situation

The Girl Effect's initiatives are probably quite effective for the girls directly aided through their page at Global Giving. I could donate there to fund educational programmes for girls in India or Kenya, however there are wider social and legal structures that continue to perpetuate harmful social institutions that oppress women. The video and their approach to the issues seem a little overly simplistic, though their intentions are good.

I think that political advocacy is also a powerful way to effect meaningful structural change change and bring about conditions that will make it easier for girls and women to obtain the rights they deserve. I try to speak out and try to effect change in my own way when I encounter gender issues in my daily life. However I think can do more on the political advocacy side. I'm already a member of quite a few mailing lists that inform and alert me whenever an issue I care about needs lawmakers' attention, and I do take action if it's concerning an issue I feel strongly enough about. Oddly enough I don't belong to any groups that advocate specifically for gender equality. To address this, I am going to do more to educate myself on gender equality political advocacy, and take action when issues arise, just as I do with other types of political advocacy. I'm starting with Equality Now.

C*nt (the Game): Gynophobia and Misogyny

Warning: Some of the linked content and possibly some words in this post are not safe for work (NSFW, in case you didn't know).

Vexation

After I started my new job a couple of months ago, I was going to respond immediately to the bigoted, ignorant, and narrow-minded views of several people in various gaming communities. Since then I've been busy at work and at home, and frankly I haven't been in much of a mood to blog, nor have I been able to gather the mental focus to sit down and organise my thoughts on this topic until now.

When I introduced myself to the Guild Wars community, I did not discuss my personal life or my personal worldviews at all. However, after some Google searching, some people decided to take it upon themselves to bring up issues related to my personal life and ideological beliefs.  Hearsay being what it is, a few even accused me of starting these discussions about my personal life in the first place.

It made me angry that people, who know nothing about be apart from what they found through Google, targeted me with sexist, misogynistic, anti-feminist, racist, and homophobic comments.

It made me angry that people made sexist and objectifying comments about my appearance. Apparently I am supposed to welcome comments from people (I assume they are males) saying that they'd "hit it" or "tap that" because they found me attractive. Comments that reduce me to an object without agency or will are compliments, right?

It also made me angry that people made racist comments. Oh wait, fetishising me because of my race is supposed to be a positive thing as well? Get a clue, people -- it's not acceptable. It's racist and ignorant.

It made me angry that people who don't have any clue about feminism believe that feminists are a threat to their "fun". Following that line of logic, apparently sexism is fun? Eh, not so much. I find it depressing that the most basic tenet of feminism -- equality between the sexes -- should be viewed as a threat to the existing (un)acceptable behaviours in gaming communities.

While I am on the subject of feminism -- I am a feminist. So what? There are games industry women, more famous, more high-profile, and with more widespread influence, than I who identify as feminist. Feminists are out there.

It's irritating to read comments from people who mindlessly swallow all the stereotypes they've heard about feminism. Moreover, the idea that all feminists are ideologically identical is both stupid and ignorant. The main belief that all feminists hold is simply equality between the sexes. That's it. Anything beyond that depends upon the individual.

It made me angry that at least one person did not welcome the fact that I am female. It's a surprising attitude to find in 2008, but it exists. What was almost as surprising as this attitude is the fact that before and after I joined the game, the ratio of female and male Community Managers was identical. Why one would oppose maintaining the same female/male ratio is beyond me; god forbid the ratio ever be equalised at some point in the future.

It made me angry to have people speculate on and make assumptions about my sexual orientation, too. It was not acceptable for people to make the assumption that I am a lesbian, assume that I am out to everyone in my life (including work), and parade these assumptions around as fact -- publicly to the internet. News flash: being a feminist does not mean that one is a lesbian and conducting an interview with a founder of LesbianGamers.com doesn't necessarily mean that one is a lesbian either. One a sidenote, it irritates me that people continue to cling so desperately to their narrow, black and white views of sexuality and sexual orientation, assuming that if someone isn't heterosexual, they must surely be homosexual because nuances in the human condition apparently do not exist.

Furthermore, the homophobia that some people showed, after they assumed that I was a lesbian, was absolutely repulsive and apalling. There was even a comment from a homophobic "concerned parent" who was convinced that I was personally responsible for corrupting their child because some random members of the Guild Wars community decided to speculate on and discuss my sexual orientation.

Another thing that these people didn't think about or probably even care about is: what if I was a lesbian and wasn't out to everyone at work and at home? Did they even care that their comments and discussions could have an impact on my career and personal life? Not everyone in the world is equally tolerant, as evidenced by the "concerned parent" above, and unfortunately gay people often have to choose the terms under which they come out. To rob someone of that choice, regardless of the correctness of the facts, is wrong and thoughtless.

To make things perfectly clear: I am not a lesbian, but I am not not a lesbian. My sexual orientation, whatever it is, isn't something that I'd even consider discussing with the Guild Wars community at large, much less any other random gaming community.

I did know that people would do Google searches on me. I knew they would find articles I'd written, interviews I'd participted in, and so on. My blog is public, and it's not hard to link my handle to my real name. However, just because I expected some of these responses doesn't mean that sexism, homophobia, racism, or all the rest of that shit are remotely acceptable.

Some gamers really need to grow up.

P.S. -- Before someone tells me that I'm being too sensitive or that I'm too uptight and just need to get laid... News flash: I am sexed quite regularly, and yet sexism, racism, homophobia, and all the other bigoted and ignorant attitudes that fester in gaming culture still piss me off.

EDIT: 31 July 2008: Some kindly person has linked this on the forums, and I'm receiving an influx of comments. I don't know why people feel the need to resurrect discussion on a post that I wrote well over a month ago, about stuff that happened nearly four months ago. I have moved on. You should probably do the same.

Fear not. The response that I received from the bigoted members of the community has decidedly not affected the way that I approach my job. I practice the fine art of keeping my personal life separate from my professional life. This may explain why, ya know, I haven't expressed my displeasure about these bigoted members of the community in the forums.

Guitar-ing and Racing

My, my, it's been a while. Let's do a brief gaming update.

• Have not been playing Guild Wars like I said I would. Am planning on playing for at least a few hours this coming weekend.

 

• Have, however, been playing Mario Kart DS and Guitar Hero III.

 

• Sadly, have not gotten a Rock Band fix since last year.

 

• Got a free-to-play copy of Lumines for the PC. Have not played it as much as I would like. Apart from being busy, am fearful of addiction.

Let's drill down.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

For me it's not as good as Guitar Hero I and Guitar Hero II for a few reasons: 1) boss battles, 2) story mode, and 3) changes in a few of the characters. Overall, I do like the game. I bought the game mainly for the music, and I got the one with the guitar so that I could play with someone else. Most of the music is great. There are loads of songs that I'm familiar with and that I like, as well as songs that I've never heard before which appealed to me. I have no complaints about the music and actual game play, so I'll go into detail about what I disliked.

Boss battles are pointless, unskippable interruptions in gameplay. I just wanted to continue unlocking songs. The first boss battle, with some guy named Tom Morello, was bloody difficult for me to get past. I got really frustrated because I didn't get the hang of how to defeat him. I ended up not playing the game for a few weeks because I was so fed up. When I did return to it, however, I defeated Tom Morello on the second try. Fucking Tom Morello...

As for the storyline, which is shown to you in a series of cut scenes when you unlock a new group of songs, they also interrupt the flow of song unlocking and rocking out. However you can at least skip them. The cut scenes are a minor interruption, but I found them just as pointless as the boss battles. I didn't care about what was going on. I just wanted to carry on playing.

Most of the glaring irritations are the character department. The first is the removal of Pandora, one of my favourite characters from the first two Guitar Hero games. I didn't see the point in taking her out of the third game. She was great, so why mess with greatness? The designers also decided that it would be a fantastic idea to depict Casey Lynch and especially Judy Nails in a sexually objectified manner. The also added a new female character, Midori, who quite frankly is a guitar-playing, sexually-objectified racial stereotype. Another character I disliked intensely is the generic female lead singer (when you play a song in which there is a female lead). Her mannerisms and attire are so repulsive because it's clear the decision to do this was to appeal to a male gamer. Content like this simply alienates me. I also really disliked the fact that, at certain times in the game, these female go-go dancers appear and dance suggestively to your guitar playing. The first two Guitar Hero games enjoyed much success, and it wasn't because the Harmonix decided to depict the female characters in a glaringly sexist way; it was because the game design and music were great. Neversoft should have understood that if they make a good game, people will buy it even if the female character designs don't pander to the male gaze.

Mario Kart DS

I got this game because I like Mario Kart. In fact, Mario Kart is the only Mario-related series that I really like. I have avoided the Mario platformers since Super Mario World on the SNES. I also got this game because I wanted to use the non-default karts when we have DS gaming lunches at the office. I have not played a Mario Kart game avidly since Super Mario Kart for the SNES. This means that I really, really suck compared to my significant other, who has played nearly every Mario Kart game to death. Despite my poor racing skills, I do enjoy the game. I am still trying to figure out which character most closely matches my driving style, though.

Positives of Women-Oriented Gaming Communities

The September issue of Cerise Magazine included an article on "the positive aspects of women-oriented gaming communities". I know that many gamers, men and women, are against women-only or women-oriented gaming communities, guilds, and clans on the basis that these communities segregate and that they divide women gamers from the gaming community as a whole. They argue that the only way for women to be accepted by mainstream (e.g. male-dominated) communities is not to go off and form their own communities, but to jump right in with the men. No one's saying we're not already participating in mainstream gaming communities. Most women gamers I know, myself included, participate general communities. However there are discussions that general gaming communities are less receptive to, and this is partly why some women gamers also participate in women-oriented gaming communities. There are many positive aspects of women gamer communities as the article reveals.

[Read]

P.S. -- There is also an interview with me in this month's issue.

PAX Panel: Girls, Games, and the Growing Role of Women in the Game Industry

Really quickly before I head out (late).

Each panelist was instructed to introduce themselves, how they got into games, and how they got into the industry. The moderator was Trixie from Xbox.com. Apparently her reputation precedes her and she doesn't need to be introduced with a last name. The panelists were Jane Pinckard from CMP (the company that runs the Game Developers Conference), Morgan Romine from Ubisoft (also Team Captain of the US Frag Dolls), and Theresa Pudenz from Flying Lab Software (also an ex-Frag Doll).

Most of them gave similar stories re: getting into gaming. They got into games at a young age, some kept up with it, others weren't hardcore until later in life. Romne and Pinckard got into the industry in unorthodox ways. Romine bugged Ubisoft for a job until they let her in, and they then tried to figure out what to do with her. The Frag Dolls was the result. Pinckard blogged (yay!) about games and was a freelance game writer for 1UP.com and GamePro. Then the CMP job came up, and she is now doing conference management. Pudenz worked a variety of industry jobs before landing at Flying Lab.

The panel discussed the issues related to women and games that people are probably very familiar with:

• Number of women in the tech industry
• Number of women studying science degrees

 

• Whether women are necessarily pre-disposed to business, public relations, and marketing because there are relatively more women working in these fields in the industry than men


• Game content and how women are portrayed


• Game culture and how unwelcoming it is not only to women, but homosexuals, the disabled, and people of colour

The questions from the audience were along the lines of what they discussed in the panel. One guy worked at a game store and wondered what kind of games to suggest for girls. A couple of people asked about the game content and portrayal of women topic. A woman programmer asked about what could be done about women in the tech industry.

Unfortunately, I was not able to ask my question, which would have been on the topic of game culture. Romine had covered how unwelcoming it was for women to get on Xbox Live and play online matches because the culture there, and on the internet (she does community relations for Ubisoft) is so "unfriendly to women". I was going to ask how the men gamers (and there were a lot of men in the audience as well) could be more welcoming to women gamers. Alas, no time for my question. I know some of the answers of course, but I just wanted to hear the panelists' opinions and possibly get some of the people in the audience to consider them.

All of the women raised good points, and Pinckard in particular was insightful. It was she who said that gaming culture is not just unwelcoming to women, but to homosexuals and people of colour.

EDIT: Fixed spelling error. Sorry, Theresa!

The Gaming Bitch on Gender and Games

The Gaming Bitch writes about women and games (emphasis mine):

Women identify themselves as Girl Gamers and are proud of the moniker. They put up with the images in games, because they really like to game. Here's the thing though, women are at a disadvantage in the world of computer games, and no matter what, a man will never fully comprehend it. He might understand some of it, and he might be able to empathize, but he cannot fully understand what it's like to play a game and have someone surprised that you're a girl, or worse, tell you that you play like a guy. Oh, it's usually preceded with "No offense", but I just can't get over the fact that my play style is considered to be the exclusive domain of men. Despite being on a vent server with some friends and my voice very clearly belonging to a woman, they were shocked that I was really a girl.

Someone told me to take it as a compliment "'You've gotta be good if they think you're a guy.'  Someone else told me that they didn't mean to offend me. Well sure, don't take offense at an extremely sexist statement, it wasn't intended to be offensive, so it's perfectly benign. But it's not. It's a stereotype that is potentially damaging. I am a woman who is relatively secure, well-balanced and pretty certain of herself as a woman and yet it bothered me. Imagine a 12 or 14 year old girl is told that she plays like a guy? She is in essence being told that the good players are guys; therefore, she can never be a good player and a girl.

I haven't got much to add to her post, as it's very good.

I will note that I am slightly disappointed by her opening paragraph in which she supports the feminist ideals of equality, so long as she isn't labeled a feminist because she's an atypical feminist if at all. There are all sorts of feminists, and they all don't agree with each other on all issues. It's not bad or wrong to be a feminist, just as it isn't bad or wrong to be a conservative. The problem is that we probably see the more extreme examples of these viewpoints in the media, and people just assume that everyone in those groups are the same.

[Read]

I Reject the ‘Big Boys’

One of the interesting things about the whole set of issues associated with women gamers is that women, unsurprisingly, have different views on these matters -- if they choose to consider any of this as at all important. Some of them claim that there shouldn't be a ruckus about women and gaming, but they still feel the need to address it at length.

Last week, I was discussing women gamers with a colleague, another woman gamer. She expressed extreme annoyance, a view that I share, towards the Jessica Chobots of the gaming world. These women gamers use their gender as an advantage to get attention and special treatment from male gamers, who dominate gaming culture. This attention-seeking manifests in online gaming, too. I've read that women players will play up the fact that they're women and they get items, gold, and special treatment.

Many women agree that the attention-seeking women gamers make it difficult for the 'genuine' women gamers be treated seriously. Some women gamers think the solution is to try to fit in with the current gaming culture. If we conform, we will be treated 'seriously' and accepted as equals. In other words, if you want to play with the 'big boys' you need to let some things slide.

The problem with this notion, in my opinion, is that it presumes that the way the 'big boys' act is something that we should aspire to, that this culture should be the de facto standard. I don't agree. Why should I conform when I find many of the standards unacceptable?

The idea that I should accept slurs on sexual abilities or sexual orientation in order to be accepted -- common practices in gaming culture (and often in male culture) -- is ludicrous. To be accepted, I have to tolerate people using 'gay' as a pejorative term in order to be accepted by mainstream gaming culture. These women are saying that I have to accept that mainstream gaming culture condones the use of the word 'rape' in ways that don't relate to the act of literal rape. The only peope who use rape in that way and find it cool are probably rapists themselves, or just sadly and mindlessly oblivious. I find this usage offensive, and quite frankly, unacceptable.

I don't want special treatment as a woman. I don't advertise my gender when I play online games. It rarely ever comes up. However, just because I don't want special treatment doesn't mean that I want to be treated like men treat each other. Have you heard how immature guys talk to each other? Quite honestly, it's embarrassing, ridiculous, and stupid. Why would I want to be a part of that? If this means that I'm considered an outsider by other gamers, and even other women gamers, that's fine with me.