General Description
Our intervention will examine, critique, and interrupt the masculine dominated space of gaming. The central device of our intervention will be an internet blog designed to interrogate and renegotiate the gendered dynamics of gaming by posting our own experiences and opinions while responding to the comments of others’, thus creating a forum for group members and classmates to enter into a conversation regarding a sphere of socio-cultural experience traditionally closed to women. Included in the blog will be links to external websites of interest, and a re-creation of three major video game advertising campaigns in order to (re)create a gaming sphere which embraces all genders instead of just masculinity. The use of the internet is strategically a double-gesture: it not only reduces barriers of nation, race, and gender (although class and technological access might be a concern), it also employs the very technologies that drive the gaming industry and therefore already suggests an initial access and empowerment.
The Concept
Our inspiration for this project stems from a desire to understand masculine spaces as constructions of self and other, inherently tied up in a project of enforcing gender roles. We find it crucial to investigate the ways in which masculine and feminine spaces are constructed as opposites of each other; masculine spaces come to define the limited, restrictive, and oppressive feminine spaces which women are expected to occupy willingly.
Our conversation quickly turned to gaming. We soon came to the conclusion that, even as a diverse group of women with different lifestyles, backgrounds and interests, we harboured a shared sense of disconnect from the gaming world. Games are tools of socialization, teaching gender roles and ways of being in the world, and Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore specifically highlight how sports operate in the process by which “[b]oys and girls are first separated by gender; then…gender-marked and expected to behave in gendered ways.” Likewise, it is evident that games and gamers are active participants in this project of socialization, and reinforce the discourse of gender roles. Games for children at a young age are rarely created for both boys and girls to play together, but instead rely on their separation. Games for boys are focused on adventure, sports, competition, and violence, while games for girls are tied up in consumerism and domesticity. In fact, as a group we could only think of a handful of games which were both boys and girls were not expected to play separately. However, perhaps more important is the ‘gap in games’ which we observed growing up. After the elementary school age group, it is clear that games become exclusively for boys, while girls are left out of the gaming scene.
It is from this place of exclusion that we have decided to intervene in this ‘boys club’ of gaming by creating a feminist review of video games, invading a masculine space to challenge the construction and reinforcement of gender roles in leisure activities. We will launch our intervention into popular culture employing the medium of the internet blog as an open forum on the ‘gap in games’ where each group member will regularly post their experiences of entering the gaming sphere. Our intention is to create a place for the open interrogation of video games as a site of gender construction, male exclusivity, the exclusion of women, the objectification of female bodies, and personal experiences.
In addition to our own experiences, our blog will include posters showing how video games can be advertised as gender neutral, as opposed to having video games which portray stereotypical interests, such as applying makeup. Video games on the market today are mostly focused towards men, and as such we have decided to make video game covers to attract both sexes without being gendered in this generally male dominated market.
This project encourages us to think creatively about how to enter restricted masculine spaces. Beginning with the gaming sphere, this project is not limited, but could also be extended to several other domains including the work space, advertising, and citizenship. In a society where access is continuously denied based on race, class, and gender, it is central that conversations surrounding right of entry continue to be disrupted, challenged, and developed in order to promote inclusion. Our intervention supports the concept of this project by directly interfering in a sector of popular culture which usually exists unchallenged by questions of access and exclusivity.
The Execution
We are certain that it is practical and realistic to be prepared to present in class after reading week. We have divided the labour equally and have considered each other’s strengths and weaknesses to allow for the best possible experiences and results.
By using a blog, we feel that each member in our group will be given the equal opportunity to contribute to the creative intervention while simultaneously opening the discussion beyond our own group’s contributions. Employing a website such as blogger.com to create our blog, the site will be open to all who can access the internet, and the address will be distributed in class two weeks before the presentation to allow for classmates to post their comments and engage with our project. We believe that this will not only deepen our understanding of the exclusion of women from the male dominated gaming industry, but also demonstrate and support our belief that access to all spheres of life should be inclusive regardless of race, gender, or class.
A concern that we must address is the reality that not everyone has access to the internet. We recognize that by creating a blog we are limiting our readership; however, we felt that a blog would be the most democratic medium as it will reach more individuals online than if we simply presented our thoughts and re-vamped advertising campaigns in our class presentation. If we were to develop our intervention outside the parameters of this project, we would consider creating a zine with similar content which could be distributed by hand, or creating posters to display on lamp posts across Toronto. On a final note, the use of computer technology to address a sphere of culture dominated by computer technology also mitigated our concerns; those without access to the internet are less likely to be those most directly affected and involved in the culture of gaming, and those with access most likely to benefit from our intervention.
