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Speaker 1: plan and Surprisingly Human. Welcome to Stuff Mob Never told
Speaker 1: you from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen. This is
Speaker 1: part two looking at women in a video games. The
Speaker 1: last episode, which I'm sure you listen to, was focusing
Speaker 1: on women in the actual gaming industry, the women who
Speaker 1: designed the games, run the companies, come up with these
Speaker 1: great ideas, and the fact that well the numbers aren't great,
Speaker 1: there is hope out there. We gave you a list
Speaker 1: of a lot of really interesting women who are heading
Speaker 1: up companies and designing the games. This episode, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about both the women playing the games and
Speaker 1: the women in the games. Yeah, so let's kick off
Speaker 1: with some numbers for a little refresher. Women comprise of
Speaker 1: the entire gaming population and that includes all kinds of games.
Speaker 1: And then from there we comprise of video gamers. So
Speaker 1: anyone who says women and girls don't play video games
Speaker 1: don't know what they're talking about. One thing that has
Speaker 1: kind of lobbed against women gamers, though, is that a
Speaker 1: lot of us play social games. These might be on
Speaker 1: social media. They're called social or casual gaming, and it's
Speaker 1: things like candy Crush for instance. Yeah. The interesting thing
Speaker 1: is how King, which is a company that publishes Candy Crush,
Speaker 1: actually tests all of its new games on a target
Speaker 1: demo of women to fifty five and if they like it,
Speaker 1: they go ahead and put it out because they've found
Speaker 1: that if women to fifty five respond well to a game,
Speaker 1: it goes on to be a smash hit with all audiences.
Speaker 1: What do you know about that? Who knew? Well? So
Speaker 1: women comprise of social gamers compared to forty six percent
Speaker 1: of men, and the average age is forty what's up
Speaker 1: with that? Why? Why do women make up such a
Speaker 1: huge percent of social gamers. I think it could have
Speaker 1: something to do with the fact that, I don't know,
Speaker 1: we're busy and we might not have a tendency to
Speaker 1: sit down and play Halo for five hours. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, we dominate social media. There are more
Speaker 1: of us on places like Facebook, where you see so
Speaker 1: many candy Crush updates and ads. Um. But experts suggest
Speaker 1: that essentially women are adult women where I mean, think
Speaker 1: about moms, Okay, working moms. They are multitasking, they have
Speaker 1: so much to do. And there was a story that
Speaker 1: I was reading interviewing one woman about her candy crush addiction,
Speaker 1: and she I think she had she had a very
Speaker 1: young child, and she said, I play it during naptime
Speaker 1: because it's just this little window of time that I
Speaker 1: have all to myself, and it allows me to forget everything.
Speaker 1: She can't sit down and play Call of Duty for
Speaker 1: eight hours, and she says that playing it offers her
Speaker 1: just this window of escape and because she doesn't have time,
Speaker 1: for instance, to not that all men have hours to
Speaker 1: kill playing Call of Duty kill Call of Duty un pun,
Speaker 1: but that they think that that's one reason why adult
Speaker 1: women tend to play more on the go games is
Speaker 1: just because we have smaller pockets of time throughout the day. Perhaps, um,
Speaker 1: but this whole women being more drawn to social and
Speaker 1: casual gaming as it's called. I kind of hate the
Speaker 1: term casual gaming because it plays into the stereotype that
Speaker 1: women aren't legit gamers because if you start talking to
Speaker 1: quote unquote hardcore gamers and you are a female identified,
Speaker 1: well just get ready because they will challenge your credibility
Speaker 1: because they're gonna want to know. As soon as you
Speaker 1: say that you enjoy games, you're gonna need you essentially
Speaker 1: need to resume to prove that you know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, kind of like talking to like record store guys,
Speaker 1: no offense. Yeah, well so you mentioned hardcore, like that's
Speaker 1: that's actually a thing. That's a demographic. Hardcore gamers are
Speaker 1: defined by play time per week and are basically a
Speaker 1: smaller subset of a games core audience. These are the
Speaker 1: top ten percent of gamers who spend the most time
Speaker 1: playing per week, at nineteen hours a week. Nineteen hours
Speaker 1: a week. That's incredible. That's a second job. That's like
Speaker 1: a part time job. And Dennis Schameeca over at Venture
Speaker 1: be looked into jen D and core and hardcore gaming
Speaker 1: because don't confuse core gaming and hardcore gaming. Core gamers
Speaker 1: simply refer to anyone who plays video games on consoles
Speaker 1: like Xbox three sixty p S three UH as well
Speaker 1: as like Nintendo we and UH three D s. And
Speaker 1: when you look at the top selling super genres as
Speaker 1: they're called for these core gamers as console players, it
Speaker 1: is a lot of guy oriented stuff. First person shooter games,
Speaker 1: action games, sports games. Those are the three, not surprisingly
Speaker 1: top sellers, and they have overwhelmingly over male audiences. Although,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned in that last podcast in part one
Speaker 1: of our video game series, do not discount women for
Speaker 1: not wanting to play first person shooter games, action games,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Because what was it like thirty of women
Speaker 1: enjoy playing violent video games. Absolutely, And when you talk
Speaker 1: about these core gamers, these are the people who really
Speaker 1: have the most influence over how the public thinks about
Speaker 1: video games and gamers. So when you think of a gamer,
Speaker 1: the image that comes to mind is not a forty
Speaker 1: year old married woman playing candy Crush. You think of
Speaker 1: that demographic that is playing a first person shooter game
Speaker 1: on the Xbox three sixty for instance. So when you
Speaker 1: look at the age breakdown for core and hardcore gamers,
Speaker 1: the core audience has an average age of about thirty
Speaker 1: and is excuse sixty forty mail. The hardcore average age
Speaker 1: is lower, it's about five and skews eighty five to
Speaker 1: fifteen mail and that I mean that breakdown of the
Speaker 1: hardcore gaming population is where a lot of this idea
Speaker 1: that well, women don't play video games, no women are
Speaker 1: actual legit gamers. That's where a lot of this comes in.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, you got to remember when you're
Speaker 1: hearing from hardcore gamers, we're talking about like the nineties
Speaker 1: percentile gamers. These are the people who play in the
Speaker 1: top ten percent, like nineteen. Like you said, an average
Speaker 1: I means some people play plenty more than nineteen hours
Speaker 1: a week. These are It's like the voices a few
Speaker 1: are being broadcast too many exactly. Well, now, Christine, you
Speaker 1: said something a minute ago about like if if a
Speaker 1: woman or a young girl says that she's a gamer,
Speaker 1: she basically has to prove herself, like she needs a
Speaker 1: resume to prove that she knows about and plays games.
Speaker 1: This ties into the whole girl gamer stereotype, and girl
Speaker 1: usually spelled when it's being used as a pejorative term
Speaker 1: g u r L. Not to be confused with the
Speaker 1: generic just a girl game or a female person who
Speaker 1: plays games, and not to be confused with fake geek girls.
Speaker 1: Like all of these things that arouse such ire in
Speaker 1: a lot of young men playing video games, and a
Speaker 1: lot of stereotypes that come up with this girl gamer
Speaker 1: surround the idea that any woman or young girl who
Speaker 1: is playing game games is just doing it for attention.
Speaker 1: And god forbid you claim the term girl gamer for yourself.
Speaker 1: God forbid you want to set yourself apart as a
Speaker 1: woman and own it, because there's that notion that if
Speaker 1: you're doing it, you do just want attention. You're not
Speaker 1: even allowed to own your own femininity or femaleness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and this spawned an entire meme across the internet
Speaker 1: where and you have like women participating in it as well,
Speaker 1: talking down about oh, girl gamers. She's just the girl
Speaker 1: gamerh did she instagram herself looking cute with her joy
Speaker 1: stick in our hand? Then you're just a girl gamer.
Speaker 1: You don't actually enjoy these games. And um, I got
Speaker 1: into a little bit of a Reddit rabbit hole reading
Speaker 1: up on girl gamers because it's just interesting to see
Speaker 1: just first person these perceptions and people's supposed experiences with them.
Speaker 1: And there was one woman's post on Reddit talking about
Speaker 1: you know what, she kind of copped to it. She said,
Speaker 1: I was a girl gamer for a while, she started
Speaker 1: talking about how she kind of found gaming and it
Speaker 1: was the first place where she ever received attention, any
Speaker 1: kind of attention from God. She never really fit in,
Speaker 1: she was overweight, she just never felt good about herself,
Speaker 1: and finally when she found gaming, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: men were taking interest in her because she was into
Speaker 1: this kind of male oriented hobby. And she said that
Speaker 1: for a while she kind of played it up because
Speaker 1: she enjoyed that so much. And to me, her experience
Speaker 1: was telling because it seemed like this wasn't an issue
Speaker 1: of oh, well, this most mean that women aren't legitimate gamers,
Speaker 1: but more just has to do with you know, flirtation,
Speaker 1: body image, how we deal with the world and our
Speaker 1: attractions and attractiveness, etcetera. Where But but what is what
Speaker 1: what it's led to is a lot of slut shaming
Speaker 1: that happens and just ickiness that women have to deal with.
Speaker 1: That was one of the main things that our Facebook
Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never told you followers responded to when we
Speaker 1: asked what we should talk about regarding video games. So
Speaker 1: many women said, oh, please talk about girl gamers and
Speaker 1: how I always have to prove myself. Yeah, but those
Speaker 1: girl gamers are a lot of the times having to
Speaker 1: prove themselves based on their looks, Whereas if a dude
Speaker 1: comes along and wants to play a game, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well we're going to test you based on your skill.
Speaker 1: Are you any good at this? No? Okay, well then
Speaker 1: obviously you're not worth it, Whereas when a woman comes along,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, well are you hot? Are you really
Speaker 1: playing the game? Are you just posing with your joystick
Speaker 1: and like licking it and posting pictures of yourself on
Speaker 1: the internet, Like, yeah, first of all, why are you
Speaker 1: looking at joystick? But that's the thing. There's like that
Speaker 1: horrible divide where men at least get the get the
Speaker 1: favor of being judged on their actual skill, whereas women
Speaker 1: are just like are you cute or not? Or yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think i've ever heard anyone termed
Speaker 1: a guy gamer. Oh he's a guy gamer. He's just
Speaker 1: he's just posing with that joystick by his abs for
Speaker 1: just just for the ladies. Well, then, I mean that's
Speaker 1: another thing. You hear a lot of guys saying, like,
Speaker 1: shut up about being a girl gamer. I don't call
Speaker 1: myself a guy gamer. You're just a gamer and so,
Speaker 1: but then that discourages girls and women who do want
Speaker 1: to own it because yes, okay, well there's a girl
Speaker 1: gamer demographic. That's like just doing it for attention according
Speaker 1: to these guys. But then what happens when the girls
Speaker 1: and women actually want to say, no, I'm different from you,
Speaker 1: I play differently, I want different things, and why do
Speaker 1: all of these criteria have to exist? Katie Heeney over
Speaker 1: at BuzzFeed created just such a perfect collection of all
Speaker 1: of the slut shamy, confusing, and sometimes straight up sexist
Speaker 1: and contradictory rules for being a girl gamer, where it's like,
Speaker 1: you gotta play games, but you can't be too obvious
Speaker 1: about it, because if you're too obvious about how you
Speaker 1: like games, and they're just going to assume that you're
Speaker 1: a girl gamer. And then you know, they guys want
Speaker 1: you to be attractive because we like looking at attractive people.
Speaker 1: But if you're too attractive, you know, it's just like
Speaker 1: and so that's why a lot of times women will
Speaker 1: end up going just like won't speak, for instance, on
Speaker 1: you know, like multiplayer games. They won't. They just keep
Speaker 1: their femaleness as hidden as possible, just to not have
Speaker 1: to even deal with it. Yeah, Blogger Stephanie ben Dixon
Speaker 1: basically said the exact same thing. She was talking about
Speaker 1: how she finds herself editing certain aspects of her femininity
Speaker 1: for fear that it would somehow damage her credibility. And
Speaker 1: I mean, this gets into all sorts of issues that
Speaker 1: krist and I have talked about before as far as
Speaker 1: fem phobia goes. But Stephanie says, hey, look, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of pink tech accessories, and she goes into it.
Speaker 1: It starts to sound really cool, and she's like owning
Speaker 1: her differences. She says she accepts the term girl gamer
Speaker 1: because for now we're still a minority that faces a
Speaker 1: wall of angry nerd rage. But in talking about her
Speaker 1: pink accessories, I noticed something very interesting because at first
Speaker 1: she's like, yeah, I'm owning it, like pink is different.
Speaker 1: But then she says, I liked the idea of how
Speaker 1: this obnoxiously defiant and slightly sickening color would go against
Speaker 1: the grain somewhat. And then I'm like, oh, it's Stephanie, Like,
Speaker 1: there's still she while she is owning pink and owning
Speaker 1: the term girl gamer, there's still sounds like there's from
Speaker 1: phobia in that because she's calling the color pink obnoxious
Speaker 1: and sickening, and so it still sounds like she's been
Speaker 1: discouraged over her game playing career from kind of owning
Speaker 1: her femaleness. Well, I think it's because of a lot
Speaker 1: of those contradictory rules in quotes that pop up for
Speaker 1: you know, just you can't you can't look like you're
Speaker 1: trying too hard, you know. Um. And it's fascinating to
Speaker 1: me that in this segment specifically like in gaming, that
Speaker 1: it's such a prominent aspect of it, like this just
Speaker 1: this common assumption that that women have some kind of
Speaker 1: ulterior motive for wanting to play games. Um. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: like the kinds of you know, the issues of harassment
Speaker 1: that women in the video game industry, the ones who
Speaker 1: are making the games sometimes run up against. Another thing
Speaker 1: that was echoed among people on Facebook was the issue
Speaker 1: of also dealing with straight up harassment from other gamers
Speaker 1: as soon as their female identity is revealed. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: just get an onslaught of come ons, or just gendered epithets. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was a survey conducted by Emily Matthew at the
Speaker 1: price charting blog, which found that women are harassed four
Speaker 1: times as often as men and six reported being called
Speaker 1: a slut, whore or other words that I can't say
Speaker 1: on this podcast. And there are also lots of charming
Speaker 1: requests for women to just get back in the kitchen
Speaker 1: and start making lots of sandwiches. Yeah, and in that
Speaker 1: pole of the people she talked to believe that sexism
Speaker 1: is rampant. Interesting don't but I mean, you know, you would,
Speaker 1: you would think that they're okay. So there is a
Speaker 1: degree of awareness, but it sure is still bad out
Speaker 1: there despite out awareness. Yeah, I mean, and it does
Speaker 1: go both ways. Fifteen point seven percent of men also
Speaker 1: reported that they had experienced sex based taunting, harassment, or
Speaker 1: threats while playing video games. Um and ten percent of
Speaker 1: women unfortunately copped to using their gender for favors, basically
Speaker 1: like strolling into a world of warcraft and being like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: you wanted to give me gold shore a no problem?
Speaker 1: See he Well, and just like we talked about in
Speaker 1: the last episode, where um, a lot of well not
Speaker 1: a lot, but but many women, probably many more than
Speaker 1: we even know. Many women have left the industry because
Speaker 1: of the abuse. Nearly thirty six percent of women that
Speaker 1: Emily Matthew pulled reported having to quit playing temporarily because
Speaker 1: of the abuse and the harassment, versus eleven point seven
Speaker 1: percent of guys that she pulled. Game is game is,
Speaker 1: you'd be mean sometimes. We're looking a little bit deeper
Speaker 1: into this issue. A team over at Ohio University looked
Speaker 1: at the reactions by gamers to female voices versus male
Speaker 1: voices on Xbox Alive, like looking at first person shooter games,
Speaker 1: and they published a study in the journal New Media
Speaker 1: and Society, and one of the researchers, why En tang Um,
Speaker 1: explained how, on average, female voices received three times as
Speaker 1: many negative comments as male voices or no male voices,
Speaker 1: and on top of that, women's voices received more queries
Speaker 1: and messages from other gamers than male voices or no voices.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of the same thing of uh, just
Speaker 1: by virtue of being a woman, you sort of open
Speaker 1: yourself up to either being called terrible things or being
Speaker 1: solicited for sex. Yeah, So you basically your option is
Speaker 1: to speak and get abused or remain silent. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: tang said, the take home message is that female players,
Speaker 1: when heard aren't treated as well as their male counterparts,
Speaker 1: despite skill level wins or losses. They women aren't attracting
Speaker 1: negative comments just because they be terrible a gaming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like there's there's that little sign up on the
Speaker 1: clubhouse store no girls allowed. Yeah, unfortunate. Although I know
Speaker 1: that not all male gamers are like this. Guy. Guy
Speaker 1: gamers listening, I'm gonna call you guy gamers, don't worry.
Speaker 1: I know that it's it's again. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: the loud voices of this horrific minority that often get
Speaker 1: the most all. They're generating all of this negative press
Speaker 1: because it's horrifying. It horrifying. So let's look a little
Speaker 1: bit more, maybe into what women want in their games,
Speaker 1: aside from harassment, obviously, because this is a question that
Speaker 1: ties back to our part one episode, looking more at
Speaker 1: the industry of like what they're trying trying to figure
Speaker 1: out of well aside front, we know, we know the
Speaker 1: Canadie Crush is popular, but what kind of games do
Speaker 1: women really like playing? Because if you look back into
Speaker 1: the early days of gaming, the titles that were made
Speaker 1: specifically for women and girls were so hilariously riddled with
Speaker 1: hearts and sparkles and pink. And there's actually a site
Speaker 1: called femicom that's calm with an M, which calls itself
Speaker 1: the Feminine Computer Museum. It's a website dedicated to archiving
Speaker 1: these quote unquote girl games from like the early eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, and it's kind of fascinating to see. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are also the days when you have alone Carol
Speaker 1: Shaw or Donna Bailey at atari, like the only woman
Speaker 1: like in the room. So not surprisingly that you have
Speaker 1: such kind of overtly just let's play house. You have
Speaker 1: to do the dishes for twenty points kind of games
Speaker 1: coming up. Christen accepts that challenge. She will organize the dishwasher.
Speaker 1: I will I would win that game, would but I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: the a museum founder I guess we'll call her, basically
Speaker 1: said that she's preserving these games to spark conversations. Not
Speaker 1: necessarily preserving them because they are so awesome, but preserving
Speaker 1: them because nobody's playing them anymore and nobody's talking about them.
Speaker 1: They're not talking about them the way you would like.
Speaker 1: Duck Hunt, Like everybody has a duck Hunt memory of
Speaker 1: standing up against the TV with the gun even though
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to, but nobody has those collective memories
Speaker 1: of these quote unquote girly games, and so she is
Speaker 1: working to preserve them just so that we can take
Speaker 1: a look at why we do the things we do,
Speaker 1: why we look at certain games the way we do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and she pointed out how girly video games are
Speaker 1: rarely advertised, reviewed or written up, and rarely demoed in stores.
Speaker 1: And she says, even if it's a huge seller, like
Speaker 1: the more recent game Style Savvy for Nintendo d S,
Speaker 1: which I mean Style Savvy, come on, hardcore gamers roll
Speaker 1: their eyes, but it's a big seller. And yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like um with fandom in general. A lot
Speaker 1: of times, girly fandom is sort of relegated to the corner,
Speaker 1: just like go Go Away hearts and Polka dots. No, no,
Speaker 1: you over here. There's a little pink corner over here,
Speaker 1: s behind that line. I picture like the Lego movie,
Speaker 1: Like there's all these little universes, different universes for different videos.
Speaker 1: Polka dot, Polka dots. You go over there and they're
Speaker 1: all like pa dot. But the fact of the matter is,
Speaker 1: don't don't worry women gamers listening We're not suggesting that
Speaker 1: style savvy is what women want in video games. We're
Speaker 1: also not suggesting the Candy Crush or Halo or Grand
Speaker 1: theft Ato or whatever games. You know what people are realizing, Caroline,
Speaker 1: women want different things. We don't all want the same
Speaker 1: kind of game. Weird. Women are different then each other,
Speaker 1: that's what you're That's what you're saying. Women are different
Speaker 1: from each other. Yeah, you and me. We might even
Speaker 1: want to play different games. I want to load, I
Speaker 1: want to play the Dishwasher game. Maybe you want to
Speaker 1: play Prince of Persia, Build the Sandwich game. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is coming from Kevin Kelly over at joystick dot com.
Speaker 1: He was talking about how women do like story driven games.
Speaker 1: We do appreciate in game tutorials because honestly, who reads
Speaker 1: manuals or even like instruction manuals when you're putting together
Speaker 1: in ikea shelf, Like nobody reads these things. Um. But
Speaker 1: but the point is just making women aware of more games,
Speaker 1: you know, letting them know that, hey, they might also
Speaker 1: like Halo as well. But it's a matter of not
Speaker 1: advertising it to everyone across the board with just some busty,
Speaker 1: sexy sexpot on the cover. You know, keep in mind
Speaker 1: that your audience is very diverse. Yeah, I mean, there
Speaker 1: is market research that does suggest that certain themes, like
Speaker 1: games that are more story driven or sort of a
Speaker 1: more communication based the sims, for instance, massively popular among women.
Speaker 1: Maybe games that might be a little more emotionally evocative
Speaker 1: tend to appeal more to women. But don't get pigeonholes
Speaker 1: in just trying to remake those games over and over again. Rather,
Speaker 1: you know, consider all of these women who are also
Speaker 1: really loving to frag people and see, hey, maybe we
Speaker 1: can maybe we can put a female protagonist in there.
Speaker 1: Put put a gun in the hands of a woman.
Speaker 1: Shall we get video game wise? Well, we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about women in video games, the female protagonist
Speaker 1: of video games, and and how telling their roles are
Speaker 1: when we come right back from the quick break and
Speaker 1: now back to the show. So when we left off,
Speaker 1: we had established that while market research has suggested that
Speaker 1: there are certain types of games that women like, surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: women like different kinds of things. And yet if you
Speaker 1: look at the legacy of female characters in especially like
Speaker 1: big name video games, they start to fall into very
Speaker 1: predictable types of roles. So for instance, in the late eighties,
Speaker 1: this game called Metroid came out, and I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of people have played Metroid, and it features this character, Sammuss,
Speaker 1: female character, and for all of the game she's wearing
Speaker 1: kind of this genderless robotic exo skeleton. But then and
Speaker 1: it's like super cool because you can like play Sammy's
Speaker 1: and she's doing all sorts of cool stuff. But then
Speaker 1: when you win the game, the exo skeleton is taken
Speaker 1: off to reveal her bikini body. Yeah, and and an
Speaker 1: article about this had a really really important point about this,
Speaker 1: which is that as you're playing the game, that robot
Speaker 1: exo skeleton character that is you, You were the hero
Speaker 1: and you were shooting. But once you win and the
Speaker 1: robots suit is removed and you see a bikini clad woman,
Speaker 1: then that character isn't you anymore. It's just a passive
Speaker 1: object that you get to you get rewarded with. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they out. We'll get into this a little bit more,
Speaker 1: but speaking of that sort of the role playing that
Speaker 1: happens within video games, there is a type of self
Speaker 1: objectification that happens just by virtue of playing a character,
Speaker 1: like you take on the role of that character, and
Speaker 1: when you see that character then stripped down to reveal
Speaker 1: a busty bikini body, studies have shown that it makes
Speaker 1: us think about our own bikini bodies, and usually more
Speaker 1: negative ways. And so there was a two thousand nine
Speaker 1: study essentially that took a census of video games and
Speaker 1: it found that not surprisingly, male characters not only outnumber
Speaker 1: women in video games, but also female characters are overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: stereotypical and sexualized, even the case of a potentially really
Speaker 1: cool character like Sammus And now that's people are probably
Speaker 1: but christ And that happened in like the eighties. That
Speaker 1: was like the eighties. Things have like totally changed, right, No,
Speaker 1: what who are these fictional people that you're referencing? Kristen
Speaker 1: guy gamers? Yeah, no, things are not better. And someone
Speaker 1: who has done a ton of research to dig into
Speaker 1: these kinds of tropes is one Anita Sarkasian, who made
Speaker 1: quite a name for herself in the video game industry.
Speaker 1: For uh. She had done a Tropes Versus women's series
Speaker 1: for a while, just looking at the portrayals of women
Speaker 1: in pop culture, and she decided that she wanted to
Speaker 1: really dig into the video game industry because it is
Speaker 1: such uh massively popular and growing form of entertainment for people,
Speaker 1: and she began she had a Kickstarter campaign, and essentially
Speaker 1: she got cyber mopped by a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are not happy about someone wanting to talk about video
Speaker 1: games from a feminist perspective, essentially kind of taking a
Speaker 1: deeper look at like, well, what how do these video
Speaker 1: games portray women? And the good news is her Kickstarter
Speaker 1: massively exceeded expectations because she was see such an onslot
Speaker 1: of cyber attacks from people, she publicized it and people
Speaker 1: then rushed to her aid um, and she's still I mean,
Speaker 1: if you google her name, especially if you look her
Speaker 1: up in YouTube, you find her videos, but you also
Speaker 1: find so many videos of people trying to discredit her.
Speaker 1: So I feel like we need to give a little
Speaker 1: context to who Anita Sarkisian is because if you are
Speaker 1: a gamer, you've probably heard of her, and there's a
Speaker 1: good chance that it isn't in a good light. But
Speaker 1: I will tell you I have watched her videos. She
Speaker 1: does a great job of offering a comprehensive and non
Speaker 1: threatening look at women in games while admitting that she
Speaker 1: still enjoys these games. She's not saying burn video games
Speaker 1: to the ground, but it's worthwhile to look into how
Speaker 1: women are portrayed, because she explained this so well in
Speaker 1: an interview with I g N, saying, think of it
Speaker 1: this way. If gaming is the air we all breathe.
Speaker 1: Right now, the air quality is currently extremely polluted with
Speaker 1: thick clouds of toxic sexism with a radio actor particles
Speaker 1: of misogyny floating around everywhere. Sounds terrifying, right well, that
Speaker 1: society Hello, And of course that's not to say and
Speaker 1: and christ and I are trying to drive home that
Speaker 1: it's not everybody, it's not all the time, it's not everywhere.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of tropes in these games
Speaker 1: that are worth talking about even if you do like
Speaker 1: playing them. And we're not saying you shouldn't play them.
Speaker 1: We are And so I think Sarkisian is pleading for
Speaker 1: a little bit of media savvy to just be kind
Speaker 1: of aware of what you're looking at when you're looking
Speaker 1: at it. And anyway, one of the tropes that she
Speaker 1: focuses hard on is the whole damsel in distress. What
Speaker 1: harm could a damsel in distress possibly have? But you
Speaker 1: know a lot of these in your face. Things that
Speaker 1: we see over and over again tend to drive home
Speaker 1: stereotypes about women and the way we think about women.
Speaker 1: But anyway, before we get into that, what is this trope? Basically, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's princesses, wives, girlfriends, basically women in these games who
Speaker 1: often end up kidnapped or somehow frozen and disempowered, or
Speaker 1: they're put under a spell, or they're frozen in a crystal.
Speaker 1: Basically they're trapped somehow. Yeah, and by trapping the women,
Speaker 1: it gives the male hero some kind of incentive to
Speaker 1: go through this journey. And hey, you know what, I
Speaker 1: love Super Mario Brothers. Princess Peach. What a gal. She's great,
Speaker 1: but she's kind of the quintessential damsel in distress um
Speaker 1: And but this started even before Super Mario Brothers with
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong and Pauline also known as the Lady and Pauline,
Speaker 1: who was a damsel in distress and Donkey Kong was
Speaker 1: actually kind of the model for Princess Peach and Peaches
Speaker 1: kidnapped for instance, in thirteen out of the fourteen Mario
Speaker 1: games she's featured in, and she's only a playable character.
Speaker 1: And Super Mario Brothers too, which came out in nine um.
Speaker 1: And she also talks about how you see the same
Speaker 1: kind of thing in Zelda named for the damsel in distress,
Speaker 1: and she's really Zelda's never really been to star in
Speaker 1: her own adventure, isn't Isn't that a sad metaphor? It
Speaker 1: is it really is, ladies, let's not be Zelda's let that,
Speaker 1: let him, let that to settle over the crowd um.
Speaker 1: Although Sarkisian points out how she does sometimes get more
Speaker 1: active roles, she becomes more of a helpful damsel at times,
Speaker 1: but she always ends up at least getting re kidnapped.
Speaker 1: She has to be saved at some point, and she
Speaker 1: says this exists and pretty much any type of game,
Speaker 1: whether you're looking at first person shooters, RPGs, MMOs, like,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find damsels in distress everywhere. And even when
Speaker 1: you have a heroic archetype of the hero being imprisoned,
Speaker 1: a lot of times the way that hero will escape
Speaker 1: is through his own strength and cunning huzzah. And this
Speaker 1: poor freaking damsel like so not only is she like
Speaker 1: imprisoned in a castle or she's trapped or tied up
Speaker 1: or whatever, she also is the victim of pretty horrific
Speaker 1: violence and all these different kinds of video games. She
Speaker 1: tends to be basically a disposable woman who falls victim
Speaker 1: to any number of horrific violent acts. So Sarcassian takes
Speaker 1: through all of these different game titles about how they
Speaker 1: follow similar paths of for instance, the hero's wife being
Speaker 1: brutally murdered and then you have to rescue the daughter.
Speaker 1: That happens over and over and over again. Or you
Speaker 1: have a wife or girlfriend's soul being trapped in hell
Speaker 1: and so then you know the hero has to travel
Speaker 1: to try to like save the soul. And then you
Speaker 1: might also have damsels who martyr themselves that will then
Speaker 1: propel the hero on his journey. Sometimes also you have
Speaker 1: games that force the hero to brutally kill the wife
Speaker 1: or girlfriend, either because it turns out done da da
Speaker 1: da she was a villain the whole time, or that's
Speaker 1: like the only way that you can win the game.
Speaker 1: Violence against women solves everything according to these games, right basically,
Speaker 1: I mean it's sort of the way that these a
Speaker 1: lot of these games work is it sort of forces
Speaker 1: you into, you know, having one solution, which is beating up, killing, stabbing, shooting, strangling,
Speaker 1: whatever it will take to kill these women. And that's
Speaker 1: that's not so good Caroline now. And and you know,
Speaker 1: you could be wondering, well, what does this have to
Speaker 1: do with anything as far as real life goes? Why
Speaker 1: do we care about violence and video games? Haven't there
Speaker 1: been studies showing that it doesn't make us a more
Speaker 1: violent culture. Well, actually, unlike needless violence against women and
Speaker 1: all these games actually does have quite a big impact. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Why Yen Tang, who's one of those Ohio University researchers
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, said quote, the general GISTs of sexual
Speaker 1: content in video games is an exposure to such content
Speaker 1: leads to attitudes that are unfavorable toward women. And you
Speaker 1: see this reflected in so many studies. For instance, the
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve study found that a video game depicting
Speaker 1: sexual objective a case of women and violence against women
Speaker 1: resulted in statistically significant increase rape myth acceptance, essentially sort
Speaker 1: of rape supportive attitudes, the whole idea of like, you know,
Speaker 1: women asking for it, essential, etcetera. Um. And that was
Speaker 1: more prevalent among male study participants, but not for female participants.
Speaker 1: But that's not to say that these kinds of video
Speaker 1: games that sexually objectify women don't have negative impacts on
Speaker 1: female players. Right. Yeah. Stanford study found that women who
Speaker 1: played with a sexualized avatar, whether it was basically with
Speaker 1: her face on it or with another woman's face, engaged
Speaker 1: in more self objectification and bought into rape myths more. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You see this theme of increased rape myth acceptance a
Speaker 1: lot in these studies. Um. Also in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: there was a study that came out which found stereotype
Speaker 1: confirming virtual women correlated to higher levels of sex is
Speaker 1: them and again rape myth acceptance in male and female players.
Speaker 1: And we could go on and on and on. There
Speaker 1: are a number of studies finding over and over again
Speaker 1: that hey, when we basically use women, highly sexualized women
Speaker 1: in video games as props upon which to inflict violence
Speaker 1: or rape, there are you know there there's the infamous
Speaker 1: rape UH scene in Grand Theft Auto. There was also
Speaker 1: a rape scene I believe in I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was in the game or just in promotion for
Speaker 1: UH tomb Rator addition that came out and basically it's like, no,
Speaker 1: we don't because we're playing. It's different. I feel like
Speaker 1: It's different from sexual assault being portrayed in movies and
Speaker 1: television in a way because it's almost more engaging because
Speaker 1: you're playing those characters, right. And I feel like when
Speaker 1: rape and sexual assault are depicted in movies and TV shows,
Speaker 1: it's always a bad thing. It's always like a crime
Speaker 1: and a negative thing that needs to be solved. Whereas
Speaker 1: if you're the first person player in a video game
Speaker 1: that involves rape and sexualizing women, objectifying women, it's there's
Speaker 1: there's nothing necessarily telling you it's wrong. Yeah, it's fodder
Speaker 1: for your heroism and and that can have negative impacts
Speaker 1: on male and female players. And the solution isn't yet. Again,
Speaker 1: it's not a call to get rid of video games,
Speaker 1: but rather to ask for better raise the bar. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can have you can you can shoot up as
Speaker 1: many things as you want to in games. This isn't
Speaker 1: us railing against gun violence and video games, but rather,
Speaker 1: like you said, you know, Sarkisian kind of requesting a
Speaker 1: little bit of media savvy. It's important to pay attention
Speaker 1: to what we're consuming, and yeah, and not do away with,
Speaker 1: like you said, shoot him up games or whatever, but
Speaker 1: just offer more and different things like left Behind, which
Speaker 1: has garnered incredible praise. People are coming out of the
Speaker 1: woodwork to be like, oh my god, this game is
Speaker 1: amazing a change in my life. It features a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old girl protagonist, Yeah, and she also interacts with
Speaker 1: her best friend Riley, but she still has to do
Speaker 1: a lot of really tough things. And Laura Hudson wrote
Speaker 1: about left Behind recently in Wired magazine and it was
Speaker 1: headlined something along the lines of left Behind was the
Speaker 1: first video game that really made me feel like proud
Speaker 1: to be a woman, and she writes, we don't just
Speaker 1: need more women in video games, we need more women
Speaker 1: who don't fit in boxes. And she talks about how
Speaker 1: left Behind isn't remarkable just because it meets a quota,
Speaker 1: but because Ellie and her best friend Riley are people.
Speaker 1: They're fully realized, they're quirky, they're funny, and they're dangerous.
Speaker 1: And she says that Ellie is there because she's herself
Speaker 1: and for once, that's reason enough. She's not there to
Speaker 1: just titillate and motivate. Players are like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: Ellie has been beaten, so go go kill somebody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all about her. And like we said in episode
Speaker 1: number one. Uh, Call of Duty Ghosts, for instance, is
Speaker 1: going to have a female playable character in its multiplayer component. Yeah.
Speaker 1: BioWare's Mass Effect three has implemented changes that allow for
Speaker 1: gay romance. I mean, diversity beyond just women is something
Speaker 1: that we didn't even have time to talk about in
Speaker 1: a two part series on video games. Um So, LGBT
Speaker 1: acceptance and visibility in games is something too that needs
Speaker 1: to be strongly addressed. Me. A lot of what we
Speaker 1: see is is very headeronormative violence against women or just
Speaker 1: headteronormative romances, and it's like, hey, uh, I'm over here,
Speaker 1: I'm an LGBT player. I exist too, And not to
Speaker 1: mention two racial diversity as well, overwhelmingly male or female,
Speaker 1: the protagonists are going to be white. A lot of
Speaker 1: the industry itself is very white. Um So, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of room for improvement. And the thing is a
Speaker 1: lot of gamers sometimes get up in arms about the
Speaker 1: possibility of changes. You get attached to a game. You
Speaker 1: love a game, if you're spending, like if you're a
Speaker 1: hardcore gamer nineteen plus hours a week with a game,
Speaker 1: it's understandable that you might be a little resistant to change.
Speaker 1: But it's only going to make things better, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna make things better for you know, not
Speaker 1: just the games, but for the people who play them
Speaker 1: as well. And shouldn't that be the the ultimate goal? No?
Speaker 1: Not for No, people want to people want to just
Speaker 1: shoot things on a screen, right, Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 1: Crush candies. I don't know the answer, Caroline. This is
Speaker 1: this is why I really want to hear from listeners
Speaker 1: on this issue. What is it like to be a gamer,
Speaker 1: especially if you are a woman out there? I mean,
Speaker 1: do you deal with issues of having to prove your credibility? Um?
Speaker 1: Are you harassed or are you immune to all of
Speaker 1: this stuff? Do you find this kind of these kinds
Speaker 1: of issues sensationalized? We want to hear from everybody. What
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on this? Mom Stuff at Discovery dot
Speaker 1: com is where you can email us or you can
Speaker 1: tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast, And we've got a
Speaker 1: couple of messages to share with you right now. Well,
Speaker 1: I've got a message here from Christopher about our men
Speaker 1: Scaping episode, and he said, I'd like to make a
Speaker 1: statement of opposition in regard to your comments about male
Speaker 1: body hair still being socially acceptable in the US. As
Speaker 1: a twenty two year old guy with body hair, I
Speaker 1: get ridiculed and laughed at on a nearly daily basis
Speaker 1: by my peers and coworkers, and I'm often told that
Speaker 1: if I want to get a girlfriend, quote, you need
Speaker 1: to not be an abominable snowman bro. Maybe this is
Speaker 1: just East Coast college town culture, but my experience here
Speaker 1: and in Houston were about the same. As a side note,
Speaker 1: I've tried manscaping in the past, both with near and
Speaker 1: traditional methods, but removing all that hair is an arduous
Speaker 1: task that rewards me within her own hair and a
Speaker 1: sensation of sandpaper taped to the backside of all my shirts.
Speaker 1: I can only hope that I find a lady who
Speaker 1: doesn't mind my body hair if any exists, and Christopher,
Speaker 1: they absolutely exist. Yeah, I'm pointing at myself right here,
Speaker 1: because my question to you about these people who are
Speaker 1: like trying to humiliate you, are they all dudes? Because
Speaker 1: there are plenty of ladies out there who don't mind
Speaker 1: it or do like it. My my gentleman caller does
Speaker 1: have quite a bit of hair in places, and he's
Speaker 1: very handsome. Yeah, yeah, I say, don't don't listen. Don't
Speaker 1: listen to the hair haters. And this is also an
Speaker 1: example too of why we wanted to talk about this issue,
Speaker 1: because you're experiencing the same and so many other guys
Speaker 1: i'm sure are experiencing the same kind of body hair shame.
Speaker 1: There's usually just been targeted on women. But Christopher, don't worry.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of women who don't mind, and might
Speaker 1: even a hairy bag. Yeah, because if you're getting a
Speaker 1: bunch of that flak from fellow dudes, all that means
Speaker 1: is that they're buying into the junk that like those
Speaker 1: men's magazines are selling them, and they're probably voicing some insecurity. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from es may Um, also
Speaker 1: about our grooming episode. She says, for as long as
Speaker 1: I can remember, as a woman, I have been very
Speaker 1: aware of this expectation to remove almost all body hair,
Speaker 1: and personally, it's never really sat right with me. I
Speaker 1: was brought up with role models like Patty Smith, who
Speaker 1: not only grew out their body hair, but we're not
Speaker 1: afraid to show it off. The cover to Patti Smith's
Speaker 1: album Easter is a perfect example of this. But as
Speaker 1: a woman in her early to mid twenties. I've never
Speaker 1: come across someone who shares the beauty in body hair.
Speaker 1: I'm more than happy with every other aspect of my body,
Speaker 1: but hate having to shave for other people. I found
Speaker 1: it interesting when you spoke of the anxiety that some
Speaker 1: men and women feel when not shaving, and I think
Speaker 1: I feel the opposite. I prefer how I look when
Speaker 1: I let my body do its thing, and I wish
Speaker 1: that wasn't seen as such a disgusting choice. So thank you, Esme,
Speaker 1: and thank you for sending that picture of Patti Smith's cover,
Speaker 1: and thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com is where you can send your emails.
Speaker 1: If you want to reach out to us on social media,
Speaker 1: check out this podcast with all the links to all
Speaker 1: of our sources, watch our videos, read our blogs. There's
Speaker 1: one place to go, and that's Stuff I've Never Told
Speaker 1: You dot com. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com