by Stingray Sam » Wed Sep 17, 2014 9:33 pm
Re: the video, it seems like it's the video game world viewed through rose tinted glasses. Her arguments, as others have noted, revolve around the idea that boys will be boys. She also ignores the fact that there is a large portion of the video game community that is characterized by sexism, racism and other forms of bigotry and intolerance. There is an undeniable presence of these gamers in the industry that cannot be ignored. The real question is whether or not video games are simply a symptom of greater sexism and bigotry or if they actively contribute towards creating sexist and bigoted attitudes in gamers. In my opinion I think that the negative portrayal of women in video games can breed these attitudes, especially in younger consumers. However, this is not in a vacuum and i believe that these attitudes can come about even with the complete exclusion of video games from one's media consumption. These games are just yet another example of how media poorly portrays women. I think the portion of the community that is so often associated with sexism and death threats against women is the symptom of the community being highly exclusionary against outsiders. everyone in it has similar interests, video games, programming, putting in 40hr a week of gaming etc. They all seem to be primed with the ideas of sexism and bigotry being okay, and then it just becomes an echo chamber of these aspects of the culture being taken to their extremes. For me I've lost a few friends because they were using offensive slurs freshman year and while I've become less tolerant over the years of that sort of behavior they have gotten even worst. There is without a doubt this gamer identity that is based off of putting all these hours into video games and being so involved in the culture. I've definitely been on the periphery of this and i think to some extent some find it as a haven for outsiders. So when parts of that community and identity come under attack there is without a doubt going to be some pretty heavy push back.
I don't know much about Christina Hoff Summers except that MRAs tend to be fairly fond of her work, which I don't see as being a good sign. The video didn't particularly impress me, but i wrote off the ignorance of the uglier parts of the gaming community from simply being out of touch with the gaming generation. There are some things that right now can't really be quantified through studies or surveys, yet are still major factors within a community. It is no question that there is a climate of sexism and bigotry within a substantial subgroup of the gaming community. However, I think that you don't solve anything by attacking the community as it tends to lack self awareness and is fairly reactionary. Really this whole thing imo is just a symptom of larger problems within society and won't be solved until the whole issue of gender inequality is solved. Probably the best thing i see happening is people encouraging developers to integrate and push gender equality into their video games, as developers are usually well respected. And even with negative controversy over the games being more egalitarian, there are usually people deep within the gamer community willing to defend the developers and start pushing a more feminist opinion within the gamer echo chamber.