I've been reading Feminism is for Everybody, by bell hooks, and I JUST got done on the pair of chapters that deal with consciousness raising (finished them last night in fact). I think you touch on a lot of the same themes as hooks...that the first step towards feminism, that can't be skipped, is to examine how we ourselves participate in the patriarchy through internalized sexism...swallowing the red pill as it were.

Got done WITH...I can has writing skillz?

I defended GTA4 from uninformed criticism. The few people in that thread that were saying "I haven't played it and I don't have to!" kinda made me mad because they were criticizing something without information.

That being said, I like GTA4, a lot. I don't like it because it's misogynist, and I don't do the things that are in it that are misogynist. That doesn't stop me from liking the rest of it, and I don't think it should, which reminds me of what I think missmypineapple said on the unfeminist guilty pleasures thread: "If I surrounded myself with only feminist media, I'd have to sit in a locked room with the lights off."

(trying desperately not to reopen Pandora's box...)

I noticed from the GTA discussion:

1. All the people arguing in its defence had played the game and all the people arguing against it had not played the game. That's quite important.

(This was my impression anyway. I gave up reading after the first 100 replies on that thread...)

2. Given that the game is supposed to be as life-like (in the sense of freedom to carry out tasks how one wishes) as possible, suggesting that the game is sexist is very much like saying the player is sexist.

Both of these seem to be great ways of starting an argument.

(NB. I haven't played the game nor do I think I ever will.)

Sodas have been proven to be bad for you. The corn syrup used to make them not only damages teeth and gums, it is a major factor in Type 2 Diabetes. Fuck it, I drink 'em anyway.

Compare that to "Important Issues" like Madonna, video games and Baby Mama, which have not been shown to cause any objective harm (Madonna's "music" being nothing but an annoyance) to anyone.

It's not a matter of being defensive. It's a matter of people who might believe in a cause, but not to the point where they are expected to agree to something that is (a) false (b) has no basis in fact, (c) is ridiculous and (d) patently stupid. Churchill said it best:

"A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject."

So the fact that someone who thinks The Tudors was trashy fun and thinks the people who whine about it being "teh misogynist 0101!" are off their rockers doesn't make them defensive at all. It makes them something other than sheep, which is to say thinking human beings.

Enjoying something that is anti-woman doesn’t make you a bad person. Or even a bad feminist. But thinking about why you enjoy it, and looking at the negative side could help you be a better one.

Thoughtful post, Jen, and I just wanted to say I agree with this idea. I'm always bugged by the concept of "guilty pleasures" -- I think if you enjoy something, you should own that pleasure, and make your peace with it one way or another. That might involve acknowledging the ways in which you are affected by a sexist culture, and it might involve thinking about ways you want to change in the future. Dismissing something as a guilty pleasure trivializes both it and your enjoyment of it.

Awesome post Jen. Thanks so much for articulating something I've been feeling but hadn't figured out how to say.

I wonder how this conversation might translate into a realm like sexuality. Sex-positive feminist thinkers have been urging women to own their pleasures -- their desire to be submissive, or to dominate; rape fantasies, control fantasies; the pleasure one gets from being admired as a sexual being (if one indeed gets pleasure from any of these things). Admitting one's sexual desires, even if they don't always match our politics, is an important first step toward understanding the tensions between urges and ideals. At least it has been for me.

I don't think there's been enough of this kind of conversation on Feministing. I'm a long time reader, but I'm getting sick of the knee-jerk reactions every time a man admits sexual desire for the female body. Feministing is really good at reminding us why feminism continues to be relevant; it isn't so good at providing a vision for what, specifically, that feminism should look like.

The bad news is a lot of the issues we address here on Feministing are complicated and messy.

Actually, I think the bad news is that you're not able to convey any awareness of that fact in the content posted here. I mean, even this piece, for all its deep yearning to find some common ground, is again just telling people what they have to believe to be good feminists.

I think a lot of preference-blogging or preference-commenting is the inverse of the old Cure song: Why Can't You Be Me?

The problem is that once somebody admits (and you'd be a fool not to) that GTA4 content is misogynist, where do you go from there? This 'public acknowledgement of one's one participation in misogyny' idea strikes me as a bit antiquated and Maoist.

It's not a matter of being defensive. It's a matter of people who might believe in a cause, but not to the point where they are expected to agree to something that is (a) false (b) has no basis in fact, (c) is ridiculous and (d) patently stupid.

I have to disagree with you a little on this one. Sometimes it is about being defensive. I think your (a)-(d) examples are apt reasons not to agree with someone even though you self-identify with a particular group. However, this isn't really what the post is about.

No one is advocating (a) or (b) here, and (c) and (d) are matters of personal opinion. Just because you think that certain topics are ridiculous or stupid does not make them so to others.

The point is, as you stated, being aware of the misogynistic media we engage in even as we enjoy that media. This gets convoluted without an example, so I'll use myself:

I love anime. I think Japanese animation is gorgeous, innovative, imaginative, and extremely entertaining. It can also be really misogynistic. From the way that 90% of the females in anime are drawn to some of the more blatantly misogynistic women-are-weaker story lines involved, anime can be hard for a feminist to like.

Now, as the post above shows, I've taken the red pill, can accept that anime is misogynistic at times and hate it a little for that, yet still keep going back to it for entertainment. What I do is purchase and watch more of the female-positive anime and hope that my dollars set the trend for anime producers to stop the misogynist anime in favor of the pro-female ones.

If someone pointed out sexism in anime, they're not ridiculous or stupid for shining the light on what some people may be blind to. However, I can still defend the genre and abhor some of the specifics within it.

My point is that while I'm willing to give up some of the entertainment value of my guilty pleasure by recognizing it's faults, not everyone is able to do so. Not everyone is willing to give up the entertainment they get and will defend the whole without looking at the various parts that may be problematic.

I agree with you and disagree with you then. While some feminists can enjoy something that has misogynistic components, but do so knowingly and with sadness, others can only enjoy something with misogynistic components by denying that those components exist. Those in the second category (I believe) consider taking the red pill and reevaluate why they find it entertaining.

ellestar, I think you're right on. However, I would hope that feminists in the first category just don't accept the fact that they enjoy entertainment with misogynistic components. That seems like a depressing way to go through life. Hopefully, those of us who recognize our "guilty feminist pleasures" will follow your example and try to redirect our spending towards feminist-positive equivalents of the same form of entertainment.

Not everyone is willing to give up the entertainment they get and will defend the whole without looking at the various parts that may be problematic.

But in this case, aren't we actually talking about condemning the whole work based only on its problematic components? If people were defending GTA4 in total, I'd say the likely reason for that is that it was being criticized in the same manner, no?

count me in on the group that feels that this post makes sense when it stands alone, but isn't an accurate representation of the GTA debate. I was one among many that realized the original post was littered with inaccuracies, was annoyed at the argument that was based on those inaccuracies, and was annoyed at the further criticisms levelled by people that had no clue what they were talking about.

The post on the male chastity device was the same way.

I'm rooting for feminism, but I'd prefer that my "side" didn't resort to using falsehoods to prop up their arguments, which is why I get frustrated and point them out.

i dont see how watching 3 episodes of twin peaks in a row is bad for you.

"So the fact that someone who thinks The Tudors was trashy fun and thinks the people who whine about it being "teh misogynist 0101!" are off their rockers doesn't make them defensive at all. It makes them something other than sheep, which is to say thinking human beings. "

Except, in our country most people /aren't/ feminist and a lot of people /do/ look down on feminists... so your sheep argument is a bit off, if not completely reversed...

And for those of you saying otherwise, there's nothing at all about disecting things we enjoy, and admitting their are problems with it and maybe weaning ourselves towards more healthy material. I mean, how many of you would say that we shouldn't try to analyze subconscious racism? I totally think it's important. And whoever said that if we only limited ourselves to feminist media we'd have to sit in our room with the lights off, bollocks! There have been threads on here before about "feminist" movies, "feminist" musicians, etc. It's really not that hard to find them, if you try... And I find plenty of them incredibly entertaining or sexy.

"So the fact that someone who thinks The Tudors was trashy fun and thinks the people who whine about it being "teh misogynist 0101!" are off their rockers doesn't make them defensive at all. It makes them something other than sheep, which is to say thinking human beings. "

Except, in our country most people /aren't/ feminist and a lot of people /do/ look down on feminists... so your sheep argument is a bit off, if not completely reversed...

And for those of you saying otherwise, there's nothing at all silly about disecting things we enjoy, and admitting there are problems with it and maybe weaning ourselves towards more healthy material. I mean, how many of you would say that we shouldn't try to analyze subconscious racism? I totally think it's important. And whoever said that if we only limited ourselves to feminist media we'd have to sit in our room with the lights off, bollocks! There have been threads on here before about "feminist" movies, "feminist" musicians, etc. It's really not that hard to find them, if you try... And I find plenty of them incredibly entertaining or sexy.

In the case of defending something blindly, I do agree. I also agree that stating a problem to raise consciousness is good and necessary. What I believe is a problem is that even though something might have sexist or racist or homophobe or etc. traits to condemn it blindly and thoroughly is just as bad. I understand GTA is not for everyone and I also agree that it has misogynistic traits (also racist and xenophobe and the like), but for one it is a game about a gangster...if it was all marshmallows and puffy cuteness that would kinda defeat the purpose and also to focus on one aspect of the game and dismiss all the other, larger ones is ignorant as well.

So, in conclusion I agree, that raising awareness is important, but I also think that some people take too extreme views not in relation to the actual problem.

"I understand GTA is not for everyone and I also agree that it has misogynistic traits (also racist and xenophobe and the like), but for one it is a game about a gangster...if it was all marshmallows and puffy cuteness that would kinda defeat the purpose and also to focus on one aspect of the game and dismiss all the other, larger ones is ignorant as well."

I think the problem with GTA and similar games, as has been pointed out but apparently lost on some people, is the conspicuous absence of games with healthier, more egalitarian principles. They're just not there. "Fluffy, cute games" are not the oppositional curative to games like GTA, as at best they're silly and at worst they perpetuate many harmful stereotypes as well.

And yeah, as someone more or less raised on horror films (and who rather likes them), count me in as someone who believes that the prevalence of violent media /does/ tend to normalize violence to its viewers. That has some upsides, but I think overall its probably not a good thing.

I'm really sick of the GTA people who are so blinded by their love of the game that they can't even take a moment to agree that the four minute clip compiled and linked on that post was upsetting.

And the people who say, "that's just reality, but you don't have to make the character do it..." In reality I sit at a bookstore and read for three hours. Can I make the GTA guy do that too? That's reality!

The people who criticized GTA were not uninformed. We all saw the same clip. It is undeniably a clip culled from GTA. It's perfectly valid to see that clip and talk about the possible implications. Anyone who wants to shut down talk about implications is in denial.

Really, nobody was coming for anyone's controllers. If a subject is so taboo that it can't even be talked about... if a game is so sacred that it can't even be criticized... then I fear for the future of intelligent discourse in this country.

Don't tell me I'm ignorant. Most of us haven't been to Iraq either, and we don't sit in on the President's cabinet planning sessions. We read about the subject and discuss, analyze, criticize. These are vital activities; vital skills. Shutting down discourse is a Bush tactic, and I'm disappointed in the gamers who tried to resort to it on these threads.

You all might want to seriously examine why you're so defensive on this subject.

I think the problem with GTA and similar games, as has been pointed out but apparently lost on some people, is the conspicuous absence of games with healthier, more egalitarian principles.

I am not sure what you mean exactly. Because I know there are games that do not really put down women...could you clarify this?

And yeah, as someone more or less raised on horror films (and who rather likes them), count me in as someone who believes that the prevalence of violent media /does/ tend to normalize violence to its viewers. That has some upsides, but I think overall its probably not a good thing.

Did my post come off a little angry?

Maybe I'm so tired of the GTA argument that seeing GTA defenders come out AGAIN in a post not even really about their precious precious game made me really angry. It's a post about really examining the implications of the things you enjoy.

Can't do that?
Interesting.

I'm really sick of the GTA people who are so blinded by their love of the game that they can't even take a moment to agree that the four minute clip compiled and linked on that post was upsetting.

I think you missed the point of the post and the comments that followed from several people, including myself, that we'd be stupid to not acknowledge the misogyny in GTA but we play it anyway.

I do think editing is a valid criticism of this video. I could cull the worst moments from lots of shows or movies and then frame it, implicitly or explicitly, that that's what the entire show is about. That's one thing I took issue with on that post, that the video was representative of the entire game, like they should just change the name to Prostitute Killer.

The people who criticized GTA were not uninformed. We all saw the same clip.

See what I said above about the clip. Having never played a game is being uninformed, unless you also think that movie critics can review movies based only on trailers.

Really, nobody was coming for anyone's controllers.

Really? I guess us gamers should ignore all those politicians gunning (oops, pun) for the gaming industry.

You all might want to seriously examine why you're so defensive on this subject.

Uh...if any of us are defensive, could be it because we have people coming after us for crap like this all the time? I would think that feminists, of all people, would understand being misunderstood and misrepresented by the mainstream and how frustrating uninformed opinions about you and what you do are.

The opinions were not uninformed. Period. Done with you now.

The opinions were not uninformed. Period. Done with you now.

*rolls eyes*

I think this is a great post in response to the whole GTA debate – clearly people who like and are invested in a genre/movie/game/personality/etc are going to be more willing to evaluate the misogyny of that thing in a larger context. If I find some value in something, its negatives are in balance with that value. People who don’t like it can just broadly criticize it with no interest in its other possible value.

GTA is a great example – that IGN video was reprehensible and I find it hard to imagine that anyone could find it otherwise.

BUT, GTA isn’t actually like that video for most people. Yes you can do that, but really GTA is heavy with social satire criticizing the right, sexists, and those who glorify gang-banger culture. So it is like any other piece of creative art – everyone will bring their own interpretive framework to it and they will each see something different.

Not to say that we shouldn’t criticize GTA for allowing their message to be ‘blurry’ so those assholes out there who want to drive around killing sex workers have a venue. I personally will never buy the game because I think they have an obligation to acknowledge the real world harm done to women in the sex industry every day.

I do want to say something to the general anti-gamer attitude often voiced on the many feminist sites I frequent – could you all please stop bashing an entire industry because some of the stuff they make is sexist? This is, to me, the flip side of Jen’s argument in this post. Yes, we all tend to (problematically) give a pass to sexism in our preferred forms of entertainment. We also tend to dismiss out of hand forms of entertainment that we don’t care for, even when a chorus of feminists out there are saying “hey, this form of entertainment can be good!�

For example, Ninapendamaishi, you are just demonstrably wrong when you say that there is a “conspicuous absence of games with healthier, more egalitarian principles.�

There are in fact very many games out there with strong women protagonists and it does no one any good to make incorrect assertions about video games simply because you find no value in them.

whitney,
"I wonder how this conversation might translate into a realm like sexuality. Sex-positive feminist thinkers have been urging women to own their pleasures -- their desire to be submissive, or to dominate; rape fantasies, control fantasies; the pleasure one gets from being admired as a sexual being (if one indeed gets pleasure from any of these things). Admitting one's sexual desires, even if they don't always match our politics, is an important first step toward understanding the tensions between urges and ideals. At least it has been for me."
I agree with your sex-positive sentiments, but I'm unsure of its place in this context - "everything bad is good for you" - wouldn't that somehow imply that sex is really "bad" and it's ok to enjoy it? because i don't like that argument at all. maybe i'm misunderstanding, though - could you explain?

"I am not sure what you mean exactly. Because I know there are games that do not really put down women...could you clarify this?"

"For example, Ninapendamaishi, you are just demonstrably wrong when you say that there is a “conspicuous absence of games with healthier, more egalitarian principles.�

Oh yeah? Name me games that are not gender-conforming and where the female characters have an average body-type (or at least one that's not highly unusual/sexualized). I'm not a huge gamer, but I've played some. I want a list, now.

I'm not much into video games, but I remember the classic movie Death Race 2000, a satire of American society where race car drivers score points by running people over with their cars. It was demented, but it was funny as hell and a great diversion from real life. Starship Troopers was very much along those lines, too. I remember in both cases, people wasted valuable ink discussing whether Roger Corman or Paul Verhoeven were fascists or nihilists or whatever.

So consider me unimpressed when I see people attacking obvious satire, when it's quite clear that they're too dumb to get the joke.

Oh yeah? Name me games that are not gender-conforming and where the female characters have an average body-type (or at least one that's not highly unusual/sexualized).

Final Fantasy ring a bell? There are a few examples of what you'd call sexualized women, but I look at that from a cultural perspective; a typical Japanese protrayal of Americans or American-type characters is that they're taller, more muscular, and typically have larger breasts. Most of the women women in those games are more Japanese in form, shorter with small breasts and not overly sexualized.

If you want action, there's the Metal Gear Solid games. There are fewer female characters, but it makes sense in a military setting. The ones that are are generally not gender-conforming; a Russian soldier in MGS2 wears fatigues like all the others and has kind of a military buzz cut.

The Sims and Sims 2 are another good example. While you can't make extremely fat people, they do have choices in body size, and none of the people in it are really sexual at all, at least to me.

That's what I can think of at the moment, and those are all incredibly popular franchises.

a Russian soldier

Sorry I didn't make it clear, but that Russian soldier was a woman.

I haven't seen all the Final Fantasy reincarnations, but of the ones I have seen, I would describe the female as pretty sexualized...

The Sims are a bit better, I guess... though you still have somewhat characatured men and women (you can change body size, but not shape, etc.)

Earlier commenters have it right. As long as Jen is not talking about hostility to slapdash criticism, she has a point. I think buried under Samhita's original post could be a very incisive feminist criticism of GTA-IV. The factual errors and unfamiliarity with the subject of the criticism opened the post itself up to legitimate critical evaluation. And identifying with the underlying motivation for the post doesn't justify the carelessness of its construction.

Brian, that was me who said that. Context is important though, and I also said that it's still important to understand that some choices we make and some things we enjoy are still not feminist and are sometimes the opposite of feminist. That's important. So, yeah, no one is a bad person simply by virtue of playing and enjoying the game, but some people on that thread were insisting that it's a feminist game and that there's nothing remotely troubling about some of what goes on in the game. That's not true, and it's just important to be able to say, "Yeah, I love this game, but I can see why some aspects of it are seriously disturbing. And we can talk about that without my feeling threatened and without it taking away from the parts of the game that I love."

I mean, I really like TimeSplitters. There's a level that turns my stomach, because it consists entirely of a man running around gunning down giant breasted blonde women who make orgasmic sounds when they are murdered. And I can talk about the problems with that, and what it says about the gaming industry, and still really like the game and not feel like someone is threatening me when they say that they find it to be a misogynist aspect of the game.

That's not true, and it's just important to be able to say, "Yeah, I love this game, but I can see why some aspects of it are seriously disturbing. And we can talk about that without my feeling threatened and without it taking away from the parts of the game that I love."

That's what I've said. I agree with that totally. What I took issue with, and what is threatening, is the factual errors and the people arguing that not only did they not even know what they were talking about, but also didn't need to. It amazed me that as feminists, we look at things like context and representation and misconceptions, but when this game came up all of that went out the window for some of us.

[blockquote]
Oh yeah? Name me games that are not gender-conforming and where the female characters have an average body-type (or at least one that's not highly unusual/sexualized). I'm not a huge gamer, but I've played some. I want a list, now.
[/blockquote]

Hmm, I guess you have a point that video games (as well ass movies and similar) only really feature very beautiful people as main characters. Though that is not a sexism issue, because it is not just women that get that treatment. If you want to check out very equal games (though marketed at men) I'd look for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or Vampires - The Masquerade: Bloodlines. Maybe also Buffy Games, Sims, Resident Evil and Diablo. Of course the market is predominantely designed for males...though , that is, again, not sexism, just the way the market works.

If your point is that there are no "normal" characters in video games, that's on the whole relatively true, cause no one wants to play an average person. If I play a game I want to be a kickass superhero that can do whatever he wants...and also looks good...makes me feel better about myself.

"[Whitney] I agree with your sex-positive sentiments, but I'm unsure of its place in this context - "everything bad is good for you" - wouldn't that somehow imply that sex is really "bad" and it's ok to enjoy it? because i don't like that argument at all. maybe i'm misunderstanding, though - could you explain?"

I think what Whitney means is that there's a strain of feminist thought that disavows women's fantasies of sexual submission or domination, rape, etc. The BDSM and the feminist community have classically been at odds due to the politically-incorrect nature of female-submissive fantasies.

I think Whitney's question is, "Does it make me a bad feminist if I want my boyfriend to tie me up/spank me?"

My question for the commenters is, is it necessarily misogynist to have "degrading" fantasies? If so, how do we reconcile our feminist identities with our sexual fantasies?

Two recent games with female protagonists, just off the top of my head: Portal (arguably 2007's Game of the Year) and Eternal Sonata. There are also countless games where you can play as characters of either gender because the narrative isn't gender-specific (like Lego Star Wars) or there is no narrative (WiiSports).

You can also play as a non-gender-conforming woman of average body-type in GTA-IV in the multiplayer games.

I very much appreciate the sentiment of the post; I feel like it reflects a genuine desire to understand, on a personal level, some of the contrary perspectives in the conversations on the mentioned topics.

I will certainly concede that Jen illustrated a very plausible scenario about people having kneejerk defensive reactions (of which there were PLENTY on all sides) when ideas in which they are invested come under attack. The context of the post, however, appears to at least imply (if not assert) that this scenario accurately describes all or most of the reactions from those who disagree with the criticisms put forth by feministing.com and its commenters. She doesn't allow any room for the defenders of the controversial material to have any truly valid points; they're just rationalizing their position because it's less painful than admitting that they're wrong.

I feel like one of the things that this blog does really well is to focus on exposing the subtle condescension with which women and women's issues are often treated. While the spirit of this post is probably in the right place, it comes across as being compassionate but closed-minded.

"[Whitney] I agree with your sex-positive sentiments, but I'm unsure of its place in this context - "everything bad is good for you" - wouldn't that somehow imply that sex is really "bad" and it's ok to enjoy it? because i don't like that argument at all. maybe i'm misunderstanding, though - could you explain?"

I think what Whitney means is that there's a strain of feminist thought that disavows women's fantasies of sexual submission or domination, rape, etc. The BDSM and the feminist community have classically been at odds due to the politically-incorrect nature of female-submissive fantasies.

I think Whitney's question is, "Does it make me a bad feminist if I want my boyfriend to tie me up/spank me?"

Is it necessarily misogynist to have "degrading" fantasies? If so, how do we reconcile our feminist identities with our sexual fantasies?

Maybe I'm so tired of the GTA argument that seeing GTA defenders come out AGAIN in a post not even really about their precious precious game made me really angry. It's a post about really examining the implications of the things you enjoy.

What? It's nothing of the sort. I don't even give a shit about GTA, but come on--this post is rather transparently a continuation of that debate. And it's not about examining the implications of things you enjoy, it's about how other people are too sentimental and weak-minded to agree with the author that the things they enjoy are in fact bad, bad, bad.

Though the visuals are a bit rudimentary to assess body type, Baldurs' Gate 2 had Jaheria, who is particularly interesting to consider from the perspective of gender. She embodies characteristics which are both seen as traditionally masculine and feminine, even down to her dual class nature. (Druid/Fighter)

Another Bioware game, Planescape:Torment is also worth considering from a feminist perspective. Annah, is used to deliberately satirise the exaggerated female form which admittedly is common to many games. This is revealed through several pieces of dialogue within the game. Another major character in the game, Fall from Grace, is a fallen succubus who operates the ' Brothel For Slaking Intellectual Lusts,' which focuses on providing intellectual, rather than sexual stimulus. (Not to mention Ravel Puzzlewell)

More recently, Ragnar Tornquist's 'The Longest Journey' series provide the characters of April Ryan and Zoë Castillo. While both would probably be considered conventionally attractive, they are widely considered to be well developed female characters. Similarly, Valve's Alyx Vance (again, conventionally attractive, but realisticaly so) provides a reasonably well defined female character in a genre that is usually lacking in characterisation entirely. Valve's recent game, Portal, actually features an all female cast, albeit a cast of an unhinged AI and an un-developed protagonist.

Jade, in Beyond Good and Evil, is another good example of a strong female lead who isn't overtly sexualised.

Also, do not think that the gaming media is blind from criticising the way much of the medium represents women. PC Gamer UK has a history of highlighting misogyny in games. Alec Meer's review of 'The Witcher' saw fit to highlight the games treatment of women in a boxout, for example, and it was one of the points he highlighted in the summary box. I'm pretty sure it contributed to the poor score the game received.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that there are no issues with the portreal of women in games, or that you may even consider the examples I provided as representive. However I don't think things are quite as hopeless as you implied.

While I agree with some posters that some of the negative response was in the perceived misunderstanding of GTAIV, it wasn't unreasonable to call it anti-feminist. The few feminists who make an appearance are uniformly mocked in the game (though it always feels more half hearted, as does all their mockery of liberals/progressives), but so is everyone else. Conservatives and consumer culture bear the brunt of the attack and the vulgarity is turned up a notch. Sexuality, particularly our cultural obsession with sex, is slapped on the table for examination. GTAIV is a satire of all of American culture, and it necessarily exaggerates our flaws as a society.

Satire, however, doesn't preclude criticism. It isn't unassailable. It still possesses elements that are deeply sexist. Just as I was starting to think Niko was really great, I realised he was a moralising hypocrite. Oh, and then he hit a woman he was kidnapping for trying to get away and referred to her as "the bitch." Then he hit her again to get her to look at him so he could take a picture of her gagged face to send to her father.

It was really hard to keep playing after that. This woman was portrayed, in contrast to the protagonist, as selfish, shallow, and bitchy. I had nothing but sympathy for her, because she was justifiably scared and angry, but she was being cast as this shrieking whore (she hit on Niko before he kidnapped her).

I stopped sympathising with Niko, and I'm just glad that mission is over and that I didn't have to kill her or dump her body (like I did the body of a woman an obsessed husband murdered).

I stopped thinking it was good satire.

Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean it's bad art, but being art, or satire, or whatever, doesn't mean it doesn't deserve criticism.

Oh, and I also appreciate the post. =D

I still love Feministing, and GTAIV, though one is certainly better for me than the other.

"The conspicuous absence of games with healthier, more egalitarian principles. They're just not there."

I'd like to add to Brian's list strategy games and citybuilders, and pretty much any RPG over the past few years, especially MMOs. Yes, the female body is idealized, but so is the male. This opens the question of which stereotype does more harm, which is a valid discussion, but I'd frankly be weirded out by anything that let you create "ugly" female characters in the interest of egalitarianism, and not "ugly" male characters. Or vice versa. Neverwinter Nights has a choice of "slender" and "stocky" body types. Beyond appearance, in these games gender is irrelevant. A female in World of Warcraft or Guild Wars has no less strength or skill than a male with similar specs and gear.

Part of the problem with your remark, Ninapendamaishi, is that it assumes that gaming is "for boys." Something exclusively for men and/or children wouldn't bother to appeal to women, so games are by definition either sexist or sickeningly cutesy, right? Female gamers have a hard enough time being taken seriously by male gamers and the culture at large. We don't need feminists shoring up the other side's arguments.

Cola your comment is exactly the kind of contribution I might have hoped to find from the gamers who contributed to the original thread. I've just learned more about the game than I could have from anyone devoted to protecting it from all criticism. Thanks.

Ninapendamaishi, is it so hard for you to believe that there are a variety of games out there? This to me is the exact point of the post – we all need to examine the entertainment we like and be willing to criticize it BUT that we also need to stop the knee-jerk blanket criticism of something when we might not fully understand what is going on.

To make my point I will list the exact set of games on the shelf next to my TV (meaning I’ve played these games in the past few months):

Mass Effect, Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Rayman Raving Rabbits, Half-Life 2 Episode 2, Portal, Oblivion, Metroid Prime 3, Assassin’s Creed, Lego Star Wars, Gladuis.

Each of these games either represent powerful women with normal bodies or they tell a story with a variety of characters of every gender without promoting stereotypes. That’s a random cross section of recent releases (though Gladius is old) and there isn’t one weak/overly buxom woman in any of those games.

Google image any of them to see how women are portrayed. My personal favorite is Alyx Vance from Half Life, the particle physicist, gun wielding hacker.

Wildly criticizing a form of creative entertainment you don’t know anything about devalues our ability to criticize the actual problems with that form of art/entertainment.

Cola your comment is exactly the kind of contribution I might have hoped to find from the gamers who contributed to the original thread. I've just learned more about the game than I could have from anyone devoted to protecting it from all criticism. Thanks.

You learned more about the game from hearing a story of one mission that is misogynistic than from all the others that explain the game more thoroughly in its whole setting instead of focusing on one negative?

I appreciate Cola's comment because it represents the input of someone who has done research into the subject of her criticism.

I'm not sure who sgzax refers to in her comment, but it should be clear that most of us are not "devoted to protecting [GTA] from all criticism," but to improving the quality and credibility of feminist critique. I think that's a goal all feminists should strive for.

"Hmm, I guess you have a point that video games (as well ass movies and similar) only really feature very beautiful people as main characters. Though that is not a sexism issue, because it is not just women that get that treatment. "

Super Mario, anyone? (I'm sure I could think of others where the male character is not idealized... that dude from Pokemon, comes to mind)

"Part of the problem with your remark, Ninapendamaishi, is that it assumes that gaming is "for boys." Something exclusively for men and/or children wouldn't bother to appeal to women, so games are by definition either sexist or sickeningly cutesy, right? Female gamers have a hard enough time being taken seriously by male gamers and the culture at large. We don't need feminists shoring up the other side's arguments."

Your argument here makes no sense to me. Shoot the messenger much? I'm not saying games /should/ be designed primarily for males, but I'm saying they almost always are, and when they're designed primarily for females they're either pinkified or infantilized. It's not like it's the female gamers fault -but there is a trend among game designers.

"Ninapendamaishi, is it so hard for you to believe that there are a variety of games out there? ... Wildly criticizing a form of creative entertainment you don’t know anything about devalues our ability to criticize the actual problems with that form of art/entertainment. "

Did you miss the part where I said I'd played a number of games? I was speaking of trends. And yes I still believe it's hard to find a female character in videogames who looks "normal/average" and acts empowered. Didn't say there were none there, but I think I've yet to see an extensive list that could compete with the list I could come up with of games with misogyny/women as objects...

You learned more about the game from hearing a story of one mission that is misogynistic than from all the others that explain the game more thoroughly in its whole setting instead of focusing on one negative?

I learned more from a person willing to apply a critical lens to her experience of the game than people invested in defending the game from all criticism and lying about its contents in order to support their claims, yes.

Interesting that when an experienced person presents a valid criticism you rush to marginalize and dismiss her experience. So it isn't the experience or lack of it that you dislike in this criticism, it's the fact that the criticism exists at all.

Scary.

And yes I still believe it's hard to find a female character in videogames who looks "normal/average" and acts empowered. Didn't say there were none there, but I think I've yet to see an extensive list that could compete with the list I could come up with of games with misogyny/women as objects...

What's wrong with all the games mentioned in this thread?

As for super mario, it's true that he is not idealized, but there's still a large trend to make males just as ridiculously looking as women. As for Pokemon, I believe there is a female version of the player as well, not sure how that would count.

I learned more from a person willing to apply a critical lens to her experience of the game than people invested in defending the game from all criticism and lying about its contents in order to support their claims, yes.

Interesting that when an experienced person presents a valid criticism you rush to marginalize and dismiss her experience. So it isn't the experience or lack of it that you dislike in this criticism, it's the fact that the criticism exists at all.

Scary.

Would be more scary if I had actually done what you accuse me of.

It is just ridiculous to say you learned more about the game from one testimony that happens to agree with your preset evaluation of it and not of the many other information about the game beyond the one mission.

"What's wrong with all the games mentioned in this thread?"

Well a couple I don't agree with, most I think are fine.

The key words, however, were /extensive list/ that "could compete with the list I could come up with of games with misogyny/women as objects"

I don't claim to know anything about Grand Theft Auto, but it seems to me that any person hoping to see the world change in positive ways with regards to feminism has got to be an advocate for women's rights all the time, and not just when it is convenient or self-benefitting. This thread brings to mind conversations that I've had with a friend, who is the only female lawyer at a small law firm where all of the lawyers have traditionally been men and all of the assistants/paralegals have traditionally been young women. The firm has a flirtatious powerful male lawyer / hot female paralegal dynamic that is heady for both the men and most of the women. My friend's brought it up with some of her female coworkers, and they seem to think that the sexual jokes/remarks on appearance are fun, and aren't at all hurt by it. My friend, of course, is really having trouble getting taken seriously, and wishes that she weren't the only woman demanding more respect. It's important for us to think not only about how antifeminist elements of culture effect us, but also how they are effecting the women and men around us.

The key words, however, were /extensive list/ that "could compete with the list I could come up with of games with misogyny/women as objects"

How long is that list and what is on it?

Also, I still don't know whether that is a sexism issue or an issue that gamers want idealized characters...male as well as female.

I love Oblivion! not only can you play as many races but any race in any gender and and you can adjust the age to quite old. Almost all the blacksmiths are women many of the people who teach you skills fighting, speaking etc.. are women but when you do have one, I stress one, almost laughably masoganistic task, rescuing a village beauty, she turns out to be an ork. and finally there are books you can read in the game: one charts the bisexual journey of a young woman in a very healthy way. can we have a thread on Oblivion please?

Ninapendamaishi, I agree that there are some video games with gender-stereotyped representations of women, much like many films. We can probably all agree that it is reasonable to critique misogyny in film much like we can and should criticize systematic misogyny in all forms of media/art.

What is not reasonable is to make assertions about a specific form of media/art that are not supportable. It doesn’t help feminism to dismiss video games out of hand as some kind of massively sexist form of entertainment that no feminist could find anything of value in. You mention “trends� as if the overwhelming majority of games these days are rife with misogyny. In fact the trend in video games is to actively court female players by trying to avoid misogynistic representations of women.

The reason people are here defending video games is because we are feminists that play them and love them. Clearly, as Jen is saying in this post, it is important for feminists to reflect on why we like what we do. I should take a cold hard look at the sexism in some games and evaluate my relationship to that form of entertainment in the larger context of my feminism. I try to do that and I refuse to buy games that I find personally incompatible with being a feminist. I’m willing to speak out to the game industry as a consumer and give them the clear message that I don’t approve and that they are losing business. I talk to game designers about the necessity for gender balance in design studios, I advocate vocally for video games that represent women in positive ways, this is how I will make video games less sexist over time. Your dismissal of my list and of my points do not help make video games nor other forms of entertainment better.

"The key words, however, were /extensive list/ that "could compete with the list I could come up with of games with misogyny/women as objects"

Yes. You're right. There are more sexist games than not. This is unacceptable. It's not as if we live in a world where widespread, systemic oppression of women exists! This is surely only a problem with the video game industry, and as such, we should boycott it until it fixes itself.

The key words, however, were /extensive list/ that "could compete with the list I could come up with of games with misogyny/women as objects"

That's a silly standard. That standard leaves no room to indicate whether things are improving in the gaming world.

Improvement comes slowly, and the list will continue to grow as more women become gamers.

Ninapendamaishi moved the goalposts from incredulity about the existence of any ("conspicuous absence") to the list of conforming games not being long enough.

I can appreciate that s/he is setting a high bar for games that satisfy whatever criteria one might hold for a suitably feminist game, but I think the mode of rhetoric is unnecessarily hostile.

"Yes. You're right. There are more sexist games than not. This is unacceptable. It's not as if we live in a world where widespread, systemic oppression of women exists! This is surely only a problem with the video game industry, and as such, we should boycott it until it fixes itself."

Don't be ridiculous. No one was saying we should boycott all games. This was a thread about learning to criticize pop culture, even that that we may enjoy, and then a bunch of people got on /again/ to defend the game. That's the debate I was participating in.

Although for what it's worth, since having a friend raped and becoming trained to counsel survivors of sexual abuse, I do actively avoid violence against women in media to a greater extent than I used to.

"Improvement comes slowly, and the list will continue to grow as more women become gamers."

Well, hopefully. All the more reason to criticize the games that perpetuate misogyny at the current time then, don't you think?

"Ninapendamaishi moved the goalposts from incredulity about the existence of any ("conspicuous absence") to the list of conforming games not being long enough."

I never said "any". I said "absence" and I suppose I should have said "absence of a significant trend" or something... b/c that's more what I meant.

""The key words, however, were /extensive list/ that "could compete with the list I could come up with of games with misogyny/women as objects"
How long is that list and what is on it?""

Well, going just by what I personally have played, I'd have to say nearly every game I've played:

Gender stereotyping:
Super Mario (and all the variations thereof)
Zelda
James Bond games (Goldeneye, etc.)

Sexualized women/violence against women:
Timesplitters
Everquest
GTA
TombRaiders
Resident Evil

And then there's the numerous games where women are absent (Starfox) or are second-hand players and are designated as different by something along the lines of a little pink bow (Sonic, Frogger, Pacman, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, etc.)

(As you can tell, I grew up with primarily nintendo which of course tends to cater to a kiddy audience. I imagine more "mature" games would have sexual/violent themes more often...)

Here's an article about a female game designer and how she feels about the industry:

http://www.news.com/2100-1043_3-6082459.html

A few more problematic games, to add to my list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrayal_of_women_in_video_games
(again, this is not me putting tons of effort in, obviously)

jessicagold, ah, thank you. i guess i was thinking that calling anything consenual and sexual inherently "bad" would negate the name "sex-positive", but yes i see your point about female submissive fantasies. i do think that its incredibly difficult for ideological feminism to reconcile with submissive, and even at times misogynistic sexual fantasies. and i really have no concrete answers for that because what i have seen in feminism is disheartening to me. however from my personal opinion, i remember a while ago reading this study that suggested that women and men in very powerful positions preferred to be submissive in bed. it was like a trade-off for the authority they embodied in their daily lives.. i always remember this study because it reminded me that while heterosexist ideology certainly has its place in the bedroom, it is by far not the only dynamic of power. i personally believe that power dynamics in the bedroom do *not* have to be a commentary of your character as a feminist, or as woman. but again, this is just my personal opinion, and i know there are a lot of people who don't feel that way..

Ninapendamaishi,

Thank you for your clarification. I would agree with you that all of the classes of games you identify are subject to feminist critique (though I would identify sexualized women and violence against women as separate classes and some games would find themselves in both). And maybe the topic is too far afield, but in my mind no classification would be complete without games that sexualize or commit violence against men--which would be many of the same games. I think feminist critique should contribute to our understanding of violence and sexuality in popular culture regardless of sex or gender. But I understand this may be a subset of feminist thought that isn't shared by everyone.

But in an attempt to go back to my original point and the topic of this post, there are varying degrees of quality in criticism, and no criticism is immune to meta-criticism merely by virtue of being critical—even feminist criticism.

I'll try not to belabor my point any further.

Um, you guys have kind of kidnapped this thread and transformed it into a debate about the entire gaming industry, as if it were some hegemonic edifice.

I'm not certain that's productive.

(Especially since trends in gaming have suddenly started to change in the last couple of years towards more inclusive titles. Also, any debate in Game Design should be coupled with discussion of how % enrollments of female students in Computer Science have been stagnant or in decline since the mid-'80s.)

I don't think I commented on the GTA thread, I don't remember, but I have been a fan of those games for many years. I definitely consider it mysoginistic and it has some really bad missions involving a number of things I find rather despicable.....like murder for example. I also strongly dislike the whole hooker aspect, but
I. can't. stop. playing.

So, I'm not going to defend it or embrace it as part of my feminist identity, but I enjoy it.

So yeah, not much of a point here, I'm just making up for the fact that I never said anything on the original thread.

"I love anime. I think Japanese animation is gorgeous, innovative, imaginative, and extremely entertaining. It can also be really misogynistic. From the way that 90% of the females in anime are drawn to some of the more blatantly misogynistic women-are-weaker story lines involved, anime can be hard for a feminist to like."

...unless she doesn't lump 'em all together in the first place. ;)

Personally, I find it easy to like Princess Mononoke :) at the same time as some other stuff with the same format of media and nation of origin glorifies rape.

"Now, as the post above shows, I've taken the red pill, can accept that anime is misogynistic at times and hate it a little for that, yet still keep going back to it for entertainment. What I do is purchase and watch more of the female-positive anime and hope that my dollars set the trend for anime producers to stop the misogynist anime in favor of the pro-female ones."

That reminds me of the way I don't lump all English-language blogs together, instead of going "Anglophone blogs aren't misogynist!!!" or "some of my fave websites are Anglophone blogs, therefore they must have misogynist components, but I still like them."

Likewise, when you enjoy non-misogynistic anime titles I bet you're not enjoying something with misogynistic components. :)

"'Um, you guys have kind of kidnapped this thread and transformed it into a debate about the entire gaming industry, as if it were some hegemonic edifice.'

"I'm not certain that's productive."

Exactly!

"Oh yeah? Name me games that are not gender-conforming and where the female characters have an average body-type (or at least one that's not highly unusual/sexualized)."

Tetris. Minesweeper. Solitaire. Final Fantasy 6 (III in the US) for the Super Nintendo. ;)

It would be great to see more women in the games industry.

The wages are pretty good, the roles can be creative (artist/desiner/writer) or techie/programming.

The industry will employ anyone with the talent.

GTA4 was made by - mostly - men who wanted to create something that provided visceral, violent thrills, a good laugh and an great city to muck around in.

They didn't want to make a brilliant platform game or tetris clone or Zelda stlye rpg.

So they didn't.

The President of RockstarGames speaks here in a long interview:
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9568&Itemid=2

I'm not interested in blindly defending gta4. I will, however, happily contest misinformation, errors or misunderstandings about anything (games,gamers, men, whatever)

I remain sympathetic to feminism but - an analogy here -it's up to women to write great feminist friendly literature for women - men can't do it.

Ditto with games.

"It would be great to see more women in the games industry."

...and if you don't want to get into the industry but still want to try making a game (I may never finish the game I started, but it's still fun to play with the game maker), try the links here: http://indiegamecreators.net/makers.html :D

"I remain sympathetic to feminism but - an analogy here -it's up to women to write great feminist friendly literature for women - men can't do it.

Ditto with games."

Dean099, are you serious? Of COURSE men can write great feminist-friendly literature and games. One of my favorite TV writers is both quite feminist and male. The responsibility for egalitarian representation cannot fall entirely to women... especially when we're already at a disadvantage in this culture.

I just realized something else: what about using amateur game making software to *edit* games, even if one just likes playing other amateurs' free-download offers and doesn't want to make any games herself or himself?

For example, right now I'm playing Ara Fell, a game made with RPGMaker 2003. I was stuck on one of the labyrinths, opened it up in the maker to fin the way out (so what if it's cheating at the game?), and took a look at some of the plot scenes ahead.

So far the game is cool (it has a strong female main character and nobody has an "ideal" figure), but one of the plot twists ahead reminds me of an obnoxious romantic comedy cliché (to say which one would be a spoiler). It's not as vile as some of the sexist GTA4 options, but still annoys me. Now it just dawned on me...

...opening up other amateurs' games with my copy of game makers isn't just for adding shortcuts, it can also be for rewriting dialogue. ;)