Guest post: Video games and misogyny - should we be worried?

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As a game reviewer, I play a lot of video games: everything from First Person Shooters to gentle puzzles; from role-playing adventures to saving the princess. Games are the interactive stories of the 21st century, shaping our culture much as film did in the 20th Century. I've met countless kind, considerate, smart and genuine people through gaming who have gone out of their way to help me. I want to be proud to call myself a member of this community.

Alas: there is a snag. For every decent person in the gaming industry, there are at least a dozen others who seem committed to making us all look like misogynistic sociopaths.

In the last couple of weeks, the media's gaze has been focused on a new ‘mod’ – an alteration to a game’s code in order to make it operate in a different way from the original version - that's been added to the ever-controversial Grand Theft Auto 5. Usually, mods are pretty harmless - they can be anything from bug fixes to enabling flying limousines - but GTA's 'rape mod', a user-created addition to the online version of the game, allows players to ‘rape’ other characters. These avatars belong to other players, and once the ‘rapist’ begins, the ‘raped’ player is powerless to move or continue play until the act is completed. It is above and beyond even the graphic violence Rockstar include in the game, and it is humiliating – particularly as videos of the act are often posted on YouTube. Many players have complained to Rockstar's Reddit page, saying that they feel personally violated by the acts. These reports also indicate that the majority of players being targeted are - would you believe it? - female.

For the uninitiated, in GTA 5, the playable characters are exclusively male. After having sex with a prostitute, a player is able to either leave, or kill the prostitute and get their money back. Apart from these prostitutes, there are few female characters in the game's storyline.

The rape mod is only the most recent example of misogyny in gaming; it permeates most corners of the industry. Games developer Zoe Quinn received rave reviews for her game Depression Quest, which tackles the difficult issues surrounding depression and illustrates them in a way that can help both suffers and carers. Rather than celebrating her success, she has been fending off a torrent of ‘slut shaming’, after rumours that she had slept with reviewers flooded gaming forums. Her personal details have been made available on the internet, alleged nude photos of her were stolen from private servers, and her family have been the recipients of rude and abusive phone calls.

In the trailer for the , meanwhile, Lara Croft is taken captive by scavengers on a desert island – and appears to narrowly escape being sexual assaulted. In the game, this scene is interactive, with the players having to use both brute force and intelligence to escape from their captors. If the player does not succeed in escaping, then Lara is killed, and the player must start again.

Would this scene have attracted as much attention if it had been in a novel or TV series? Probably not. But maybe that's the problem. We're not talking about films, categorised as 18 because the viewer will sit in the cinema and see a bit of sex and violence. Instead, players of these games are interacting with the other characters; they are making choices in the real world that they can see reflected in their virtual one. Those GTA users are choosing to kill the prostitute, rather than passively watching it happen on a screen. It may only be the click of a button, but it’s a wilful act.

A recent Canadian study into the behaviour of 100 13- and 14-year-olds found that over-exposure to violent games weakened empathy for others. Of course, concerns over too much screen-time are old hat – and there’s even evidence to suggest that playing video games for an hour a day can be good for children - but surely, when that screen time is spent on interactive games that routinely feature sex and violence, it’s a whole lot more sinister.

There is some hope on the horizon. There are some amazing people out there trying to make a difference. Pixelles, a Canadian online community, runs free workshops and showcases to encourage women to develop more games. Her Interactive, Purple Moon and many other games development companies are openly courting female developers. We’ve also got Feminist Frequency, a popular YouTube channel dedicated to looking at gender equality across all platforms of the gaming industry.

And there are a growing number of people in gaming who don’t want to put up with this anymore. The people who made that rape mod aren't true gamers – gamers are people that want to build a community of friends where they can play and explore peacefully and equally. So I will reclaim the word gamer, because we’re not all misogynistic internet gremlins – some of us girls just wanna have fun.

I wouldn't say GOT is just porn, no.

Nobody saying video games are just about VAWG

But that it's a large component and a reason why people enjoy them. Otherwise why include them? Giving the people what they want is one thing. And what they want merits discussion.

Thank you for that, I think I have grasped the point.

People seem to like violence is my fundamental point. That warrants discussion.

Wah wah-ing?

Nice.

The subject of the thread is in the title. There are no doubt many threads on MN and even more elsewhere discussing general violence in this genre. Why are you so dismissive of a discussion focussed on a subset of that violence?

I will watch those, Tropes vs Women when I get the chance, thanks.

I certainly wouldn't say that a large component [of gaming is about VAWG] and a reason why people enjoy them, however. I think it's something worth discussing, which is why I'm going to watch those video, but hardly a key theme or draw of video games in general.

Of course feminists care about male on male violence. What a stupid and insulting question.

But we are often told to butt out of affairs that don't concern us and we have always been taught that men's desire to beat the crap out of each other is their business, that boys will be boys, that it's all good healthy natural fun etc. So we should just stop trying to make men into pussies and let them be men.

But sexualized images of women being beaten/raped/murdered IS our business. It affects us, whether indirectly or not. Therefore we feel we have a right to be vocal about it. How silly of us!

*Nobody saying video games are just about VAWG

But that it's a large component and a reason why people enjoy them. Otherwise why include them?*

it's not a large component though, some of those games featured in those 2 videos are like 30-40 hours long. They feature numerous strong female characters yet the reviewer Anita chooses to ignore these for a few minor scenes that are minutes/ seconds long. I despair when she picks on gender neutral games like Fable 2, Dragon Age and Fallout. All these games you can play as male or female protagonists. They do feature male and female prostitutes which she does acknowledge, but then plays down the male ones even though they feature equally. Then we have a game like Bioshock where we go on a journey into the very screwed up under water city of Rapture. All the scenes are in context with the game which is to show the horror of what went on which lead to the demise of the underwater city. Then there is Red Dead Redemption Wild West Adventure. This game also featured strong supporting female characters and features female prostitutes too, but this really is not out of context given the era the game was set it. Those scenes in no way glorify violence against women, rather demonstrate the horrors and injustice that went on back in those days. Same applies for Assassins Creed too.
Anita is really not being very honest with these videos by not portraying the full picture.

I think you are viewing the same games from an entirely different view point than most of the posters in this thread. In particular, Red Dead Redemption, which you assert "featured strong supporting female characters and features female prostitutes". I do not agree with assertion, having researched the game with the intention of buying it.

Firstly who created this game? Rockstar, who also created the franchise GTA. In 2001, Rockstar introduced prostitutes into GTA3, which has been an ongoing 'feature' of the game ever since. As soon as I realised that RDR had been made by Rockstar, I knew that there would be strong themes of misogyny in it. If you look closely at their other games, such as Max Payne 3 (which I have played, and in my view it is misogynistic), and Duke Nukem (researched this game too, even more blatant misogyny), there is a strong theme of misogyny running through the entire lot of games they have produced. The only exception would perhaps be LA Noire, which having played more than 12 months ago, I cannot recall the level of misogyny.

Next, is the Dastardly achievement/trophy in RDR. Here is a description of this trophy from www.playstationtrophies.org/game/red-dead-redemption/trophy/17511-Dastardly.html:

"Get a woman, you can find them anywhere but if you're having a hard time finding one then go to the nearest town e.g. Armadillo. Equip your Lasso by bringing up the weapon wheel and aim it by locking onto a woman in the street with, get close to the lady then release the Lasso with and hogtie her with. Place her on your horse and ride to McFarlane's Ranch, there will be a train station there. Wait for the train to arrive and stop, place the woman on the train tracks and move out of the way and enjoy the show [edited to add: the train runs her over, blood spatter everywhere]. Just make sure the camera angle is looking at the woman or her death won't count."

This 'trophy' is not only shocking for the actions the player is asked to undertake, but have a closer look at the comments from (what appear to be) mostly male players below the quoted section. Of the 33 comments, I could only find 3 comments which showed any empathy towards the poor woman you have just abducted, hogtied and killed (or should I say murdered?). Most of the other comments thought this trophy was highly entertaining and 'lol'-ed or 'fell off their chair with laughter'. Is killing a woman in this novel manner somehow more entertaining than killing a man in a game? That is a chilling and disturbing insight into the minds of some male gamers.

Another blogger also discusses RDR in relation to Anita Sarkeesian's latest video Women as Background Decoration, Part 2 jfieldsted.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/misogyny-missive-red-dead-sexism/. To paraphrase, when he had played RDR, he was not explicitly aware of RDR's misogyny, and it was only in viewing RDR in light of Anita Sarkeesian's video, did he come to the conclusion that RDR is, indeed, misogynistic. He asserts that "women are never truly empowered in Red Dead Redemption" and he questions playing the game a second time as he is "repulsed by its use of women as narrative objects instead of being, you know, human beings".

Lastly, it is worthwhile adding in this article venturebeat.com/2012/12/03/why-is-gaming-culture-misogynistic/ which questions the rise of misogyny in the gaming culture. As some other posters have indicated, the gaming culture has not always been misogynistic. This article dates back to 2012, and links within it, another article discussing misogyny in 2010. So the issue has been brewing for quite some time.

And before I am accused of 'cherry picking' articles which proved my point, I simply did as most google users did - I popped in a a few key words and choose those articles which came up on the first page. As this blog is about misogyny in video games, yes I have not talked about the wider issue of violence in games (although I am interested in that topic as well), because, ya' know, I am interested in sticking to the topic of this blog.

I really hate to point this out to you and then be accused of being patronising, but the title of this blog thread is "Video games and misogyny - Should we be worried?" As such, those who are interested in the topic are people who perceive that yes, there is misogyny in video games. If you are interested in the wider topic of violence in video games, and the subset of men-on-men violence in video games, then you are most welcome to start a thread and invite others to comment in those topics. Most of the posters in this thread are interested in this topic, and thus want to discuss it.

Also, just because you ask questions, doesn't give you the right to then demand answers from other posters in this thread. Your expectation that other posters answer these questions when most of them are not gamers and are not involved in the gaming industry is unreasonable. As a female gamer, I don't know what the answer is either, other than to make my own stand against games which I perceive to be misogynistic. If you are interested in answers to your questions, perhaps Google might be a good place for you to start, just like it is for the rest of us.

Red Dead is a game version of your typical Clint Eastwood western. Shame you haven't played as it's a really good game. Again as Anita is doing, you are also taking minor parts of the gameplay and Amplifying them to drown out the rest of the game. The game may have the same open world mechanics as GTA but that is where their similarities end. The whole tone of the game is totally different, where it's less of a satire and more a historical adventure which reflects the brutalities of that era. They could censor it, or water it all down but who wants to live in a bubble and pretend these things never happened? The achievements are normally devised by a different team and tacked on at the end so don't really reflect the game as a whole, just something to extend the longevity of the game. That one with the train track is a parody to one of the western films, so obviously they were just having a bit of a laugh. I really can't be getting outraged by it

VFXdad
Is it worth discussing ( which I also bought up to no response ) the successful games that have featured strong non sexualised females. Why are they successful , are they a sign of a better gaming future ?

Well it's true that two of the most successful games of recent times. The Last of Us and Walking Dead feature some of the strongest female characters (Ellie and Clementine) of any generation. However I am not sure their success is due to this alone, more that they are just brilliant games. I think people read far too much into these things when they should be just playing and enjoying the game as a whole.

I liked this article, relevant to thread
www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2014/09/04/the-video-game-industry-has-only-itself-to-blame-for-misogyny-and-harassment/

Good read.

Video games are wonderful, and I love them. I even like a lot of games that have some incredibly problematic parts, because games are big and varied and can be thought of from different angles. Neither any one game or the industry as a whole exists as a monolith: self-examination and improvement come from love, not dismissal. Let’s be better. Why not?

Sums it up for me, as someone who has played games for 23 years, it represents a big change to have this sort of article in the media rather than ones astonished that adults play games or decrying them as violent trash and gamers as immature. Maybe that's part of the bile that Sarkeesian gets? That some gamers have spent so long being defensive about their hobby that valid criticism gets shouted down.

One thing that annoys me is that a lot of us have spent years says that games are a totally valid medium with wonderful stories and great experiences but when somebody criticises themes within some games some people fall back on 'ah, come on, it's just a game'. We can't have it both ways.

One thing that annoys me is that a lot of us have spent years says that games are a totally valid medium with wonderful stories and great experiences but when somebody criticises themes within some games some people fall back on 'ah, come on, it's just a game'.

Exactly. Also weird how fanboys can sit and really work themselves up over minor faults and changes in games and enjoy things like funny over the top negative reviews, but can't handle serious criticism of games from other gamers no matter how soft if it's about sexism, racism or homophobia in games.

my criticism of Anita has got nothing to do with fanboyism/ fangirlsim and the criticising of games that I enjoy playing. It's just her flat out lies, cherry picking and taking things out of context which is obvious to anyone who has actually played most of these games. Trying to imply that these things influence people when there is ZERO evidence to support this is just not on either. Someone else tried to do that with video nasties in the 80's and it didn't go down too well and proved to be total nonsense. We certainly don't need to go down that path again with video games which is where people like Anita will eventually lead us. A better approach would be to look a the positives in games such as the ones we mentioned above like the Last of Us and Walking Dead for example. She could have investigated why they were so popular and how more games like these could be developed, rather than calling for the censorship of satire games such as GTA (which is obviously what she wants).

Also VFXdad another brilliant game featuring a non- sexualised female protagonist is Beyond: Two Souls, played by the excellent Ellen Page. I have also just played Infamous Second Son, my first PS4 game which again had excellent characters both male and female.
I agree with you regarding Xbox live, it seemed to be full over over excited kids who had eaten too many Smarties, swearing their heads off and indeed calling everyone faggots. I did away with the head set in no time, but it was the constant cheaters which was the final straw to why I no longer bother with on-line gaming with strangers. Single player and coop with friends is what I stick to now.

Cherrypicking? Anita lies? Oh uh, I think you just outed yourself. I'm disappointed claire I thought perhaps MN had a cool mum who was into RE.

Harassers are now spamming Anita's twitter account with horrible photos of child rape. Because that will make her see the errors of her ways, right.

She writes: The emotional, mental & physical impacts of being targeted by hateful sociopaths everyday are immeasurable. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
All because she makes videos of sexist tropes in games.

Yes we should be very worried about videogame culture and misogyny. (And general culture and misogyny, but this is about videogames.)