Nintendo: Keeping Women in the Kitchen

Last weekend I went into an EB Games store looking to purchase a Nintendo DS. While I was waiting for the sales assistant to get consoles to show me I had a look through the collection of games available for play on a DS. I was surprised to see the number of games reinforcing gender stereotypes, with games that were blatantly targeted at females being things like planning weddings, clothing and make-up, and traditionally feminine occupations like figure skating, teaching, and being a housewife. All such games featured cheery female characters on the cover, appearing to be satisfied in their feminine roles.

The above comic addresses Nintendo's ‘Cooking Mama’ series, which includes the original ‘Cooking Mama’ game, several sequels to ‘Cooking Mama’ and ‘Gardening Mama’, all keeping women firmly within the household.

Bertozzi suggests in her article 'You Play Like a Girl! Cross-Gender Competition and the Uneven Playing Field' that the games targeted at females are one of the reasons so few females are as avid gamers as males. The game store’s collection definitely supports her view. Though there are a few positive representations, such as females as journalists, the majority of Nintendo's collection appears to be encouraging females to play games that keep them within traditional gender roles and leave the more complex, action games to the boys.

Furthering my disappointment in Nintendo, as I dug up more information on their games for DS I found out that the first and second generation Pokémon games, one of Nintendo’s most successful games series, only give the option to play as a male avatar. I'm glad that Nintendo saw some sense and the newer Pokémon games offer the option to play as a female trainer.

Despite Nintendo DS games reinforcing gender stereotypes, and my disappointment in them doing so, I still purchased the DS, though not with the games Nintendo seems to want me to play. I’ve always felt that Nintendo have targeted females more than Microsoft or Sony have with their gaming consoles and games, which I thought might have been a positive move to get females into gaming. However, now I’m not so sure that’s a good thing after seeing the kinds of games they’re trying to sell to girls. I should hope that Nintendo take Bertozzi’s advice and create ‘powerful’ female representations in games that females play, so as to create an equal playing field for males and females in our technological world.

Lose yourself with Facebook?

If I were asked to define a Facebook profile, I’d probably ramble on about it being a space for articulating one’s identity, albeit often at a superficial level, to either a network of “friends” or the world at large in the case of a public profile. I certainly wouldn’t have described it as an arena in which I become disconnected from myself, posing a threat to my mental health! Yet, this is precisely what US psychologist Leonard Sax argues in his latest book, Girls On The Edge, which identifies social networking sites and other electronic communication technologies as one of four factors fuelling crises of identity among teenage girls.


Obsessively updating their Facebook profiles, statuses and photos late into the night, he contends that large numbers of girls inhabit a “cyberbubble” where they are constantly connected to one another at the ultimate cost of failing to internally develop a stable sense of self. The thirst for external validation becomes all the more central, as social networking sites facilitate immediate feedback to the persona that is being portrayed and unrelentingly honed in a way that is typically not true to who the girl really is, something she herself has lost sight of.

Of course, such an argument assumes that we have an innate sense of identity in the first place from which we can become disconnected. In opposition to this, sociologists such as Erving Goffman and Judith Butler have compellingly argued that identity is always something which we perform; that it is socially constructed rather than an essence we are born with. Certainly, in my opinion, social networking sites have merely provided a new stage for the performance of identity which has always taken place, rather than constituting a holistically new mode of self expression with a new range of associated pitfalls. For example, in order to promote the 'right' image of ourselves as up-to-date or on trend, we may pursue fashion fads that are not necessarily a reflection of our "genuine" or "authentic" selves, if such selves even exist. Does such behaviour not predate that to which Sax is referring?

Also worthy of note is his assertion that the “cyberbubble” is only a problem for girls, as boys are exceedingly more likely to be passionate about first person shooter games than Facebook. To what do we owe this difference? In an interview regarding his earlier book Why Gender Matters, Sax contends that boys and girls are “hardwired” very differently to each other. He refers to a study where female new-born babies look at a woman while male babies have their attention drawn to a hanging mobile when both are placed at either side of their crib, concluding that girls are interested in human faces while boys seek movement or action. In this sense, boys spend their childhood exploring while girls enjoy tea parties (and are later drawn to video games and Facebook respectively), not because of social conditioning, but because of differences present from the first day of life. Sorry Bertozzi, but your policy recommendations for getting females into gaming are apparently in vain. See the anti-essentialists cringe!

His support for biological determinism aside, Sax does make some valid points regarding how parents should limit the time their daughters spend occupying the “cyberbubble” (no mobile phones at the dinner table, for example). Unfortunately, it is all too tempting to make bold, sweeping claims about new technologies that ignore pre-existing trends in social behaviour. But of course, scaremongering always has been an effective way to sell a book.

Kill or Be Killed: Negative Representations of Males in Video Games

The 21st century, although in its early stages, has given birth to a new era of gaming where players are immersed in story lines saturated with graphic violence, sexual content and offensive language.

It is these story lines that we the gamer find ourselves addicted to as they are vehicles for which we can participate in acts which would certainly not be accepted in mainstream society.

We find ourselves sucked into a virtual world governed by its own rules and regulations and as a result leave the digital world having witnessed and/ or accrued labels and stereotypes not befitting to our real selves but rather to the gender groups to which we belong.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has certainly opened up a big can of worms in the sense that it adheres to everything I have touched on so far but also may be considered in a positive light in that it also gives us things to ponder and critically analyze that we may have not done so previously.

Yes, the female is portrayed negatively, for example as a crack head, as seen by my recent experience when playing Grand Theft Auto IV where I had to fetch a female characters coke back from an abandoned hospital. But it is the decisions I made and the actions I had to take in this mission which made be think that females weren't the only ones being portrayed in a negative light in the virtual world in general. Males to, whether some like to admit it or not, are equally if not on a larger scale portrayed negatively as well.

Hell, the male character I was playing had to kill about 30 people and outrun a 3 star wanted rating to even complete the mission while also having to steal numerous cars violently throwing its occupants from them to acquire them.

If that doesn't constitute a negative representation of a male then I don't know what does. What this blog has tried to make readers understand is that although it is the negative representation of females that we largely pay closer attention to, the negative representations of males do deserve as much attention and analysis than ever because if we the gamer go on ignoring it any longer it could spiral out of control to depths which it may not recover.

BY KYLE REDPATH

DATE: 02/08/2010

Gender barriers in video games - A core issue

Image source: Author screen capture

More females are playing games than ever before, but they aren't necessarily playing the same games as males. Is this a problem?

More female video gamers means that more females are engaging with new media technology. In this sense, the gender split between casual and core games should not matter, so long as players feel comfortable playing the games that they want to play.

Whether your personal preference is for the social, easy to learn gameplay of Farmville or the complex strategy-based warfare of Starcraft, if you're female and you're engaging with the technology, then more power to you.

 In reality, the casual-core split does matter. Problems arise when females encounter barriers that stop them from playing certain video games.

At a workshop in 2005, game designer Sheri Graner Ray was shocked to discover that the group of female game developers she was speaking to had never played the five games that she had selected to discuss. All five games were critically acclaimed best sellers. All five featured male avatars and were played mostly by males.

Once the women played the games, they thoroughly enjoyed them. It wasn't the gameplay that had prevented them from enjoying Warcraft (a real-time strategy game) or Halo (a first-person shooter). There were other gender-related barriers that had prevented them from playing the games.

Female gamers may now be more common, but gender inequality prevents them from having equal access to core games. If players encounter a gender issue (hypersexualised characters, lack of female characters, hostile cross-gender play) that makes them uncomfortable playing a game, they may be prevented from experiencing gameplay that they would otherwise enjoy.

Moreover, if this inequality prevents females from gaining the skills required to use the digital technologies that are becoming increasingly important for work and play, the stakes are much higher.

Elena Bertozzi's recommendations make an excellent starting point for changing gender inequality (see the week 3 tutorial reading). Whether we see her suggestions incorporated into male dominated core titles is another matter entirely.

Gender and Gaming

Last semester i researched a similar topic, it was the different interaction between men and women with new technology. Some of the explanations i found were pretty common with many authors on this topic.

They found that:

1. Women are more social, their more expressive
   
2. Men are more focused in achieving their goal

This provides one of many explanations for why women play less games than men. It's not cause they can't play it or anything. it's cause they have no one to play it with!!

Think about it!!

Games on facebook are played with friends and i'm sure you have many messages on latest news on what score your mate scores and there are just as many girls and boys playing them.

World of Warcraft and sims all provide the player with idea their socializing and the female players in those games are almost the same as males. The players can talk to other players in war craft and the conversation option in sim allows the player to express themselves

Girls Gossip

You wouldn't see girls playing counter strike because there's no interaction with people verbally, there no way for them to express their ideas or emotion, hence they have no interest in playing this kind of games. All the male reader reading this would agree when I say all women ever want to do is to express their issues, quote "I just wanna talk".

A blog is also a good support for my argument, Women have the need to keep a blog or a diary just as a platform to express their self, to share their emotions, experience with someone/something.



Men on the other hand, plays games to achieve the best/ top score. To have the best score, to be the BEST!!


This is something that happened to me awhile back where i saw one of my mate watching a game on youtube.
I asked him: what you doing?
He replied: Studying bro
WTF your watching a game, What is that anyway? i commented
He pauses the video and explained: Bro this is a video on how to stay alive in xxxxx(i forgot the name of the game) and this guy stayed alive for over 15minutes, im studying his techniques.

This guy!! studying up on other peoples techniques to improve his playing stills now that just shows how committed and eager he is to win.

Males can spend hours on games, once they push start their in another dimension, with one goal in mind " beat the system" they train, they search for special moves.

This can also be seen as the way males express themselves and relax after a hard day at school/uni/work. As men, we don't like to share how issues with females because that would make us look weak! Men has always been known to be dominant stronger and better in every way than women through out history and for us to express our weakness just lowers our status.

Hence you see that men express their anger and stress on action games where they can let go...


To conclude, I believe one of the reason why women don't play games as much as men is because it doesn't provide them with a way to express themselves.

keep in mind there are exceptions and i am... only generalizing!! All images found on Google images =]

The Dangers of Blogging (especially for men)

On the topic of blogging, this TED talk given by Yassi Vardi, an ‘investor and prankster’, examines the dangers of blogging, especially for men, amusingly labelling it 'local warming'.

TED talks are great. Like the one mentioned above, most of them are interesting and entertaining, many are also thought provoking, and quite often, as well as being informative, they are funny. As you can, or will see if you watch Vardi’s talk, even the ones that seem to be just for amusement can raise some very interesting questions. I have no doubt that at least a couple of males will begin to worry about resting their laptops on their laps after having watched this. I myself am now thinking about my posture.

What's interesting in regard to the gender talks we've been having lately is in comparison to Yossi Vardi, Mena Trott, ‘the founding mother of the blog revolution’ (who also gives a talk on blogging) discusses her emotions about blogging, while Vardi discusses (and jokes about) the actual act of blogging. Trott's blog itself is about her personal life, and is implied to be written in a confessional, or diary form, which the first lecture suggested was common of female authors.

In relation to the readership of blogs, Trott also mentions how startled she was when she realised how many people- strangers- were actually reading her blog. She goes on to discuss blogs that she follows, and how emotionally connected she becomes to the authors of those blogs, and her concern and curiosity about their stories. Through her realisation of her readership, and her following of other blogs, Trott illustrates the potential of blogs to connect people from all around the globe.

As mentioned in lecture one, blogs are a medium that people often seek out. I wonder then, how many readers will our collective blog attract outside of our class, and how many of us will actually go over to our sister blog and read the stage 2 students' entries?

Technoculture is gender-neutral!...or is it?

They say technology is gendered, a man dominates not only the Technoculture world but some may suggest that they have dominated many other aspects of our world all together. Is this true? this can become a lengthy debate one that may ruffle a few feathers. However we cannot dismiss cyberfeminism which argues that females are not disadvantaged or marginalized in relation to new media.

Royse et al's study did find that females are less likely to buy games more directed towards the female base, therefore females game buyers did not go out of their way to buy a "girly" game, this may possibly be due to the fact that females do not want to be viewed as any different to any other gamer whatever gender they may be, a game centered around pink backgrounds and saving the stranded kittens may not seem any more amusing to the female base than any other player above the age of ten, however this can also be up for debate.

Lets take gaming as an example and the negative stereotypes attached to the female "character" so is it true when people say that "sex sells" many may agree and many feminists may root for it, is it possible that technology is so gendered towards the male audience, that using women as sexual objects no longer seems strange? This may need a lot of research and until one has all the facts we cannot fully argue whether technology is or is not gendered, many assumptions do not make facts but this is a starting point.

I'm a girl and I love games!

The lecture about media and gender made me think about the differences between "girl" games and "boy" games. I play all sorts of games, Sims is one of my favourites but I have also played first person shooter games (which I have been told I'm actually good at, apart from all the screaming when an NPC comes out of nowhere) but the game at the moment I'm playing is WoW. Yes. I know, what a geek right! But I actually enjoy it because it is quite challenging.

The research quote by DiGiuseppe and Nardi pretty much describes everything opposite to what I am (or the character that I play). I love melee, love the plate wearers and I really dislike the cloth dresses and healing. I know that it is a generalised quote that these researchers have found and they cannot represent every single person's personal taste when it comes to playing a certain class and character but what I don't understand is why we have to gender everything anyway?

So what if a girl wants to sit on her computer all day and play a game, I don't think parents should be too worried especially since our generation has grown up with technology and playing games is now seen a norm in society by most people. I like to think that I've turned out okay... or I'll just keep telling myself that, hehe.