I was woken this morning by my daily shot gamin podcast. this morning I decided to listen to gamer girls radio. For those you don't know these girls take no prisoners approach to gaming can be a gateway for women to enter the world of games (they need to stop the constant shouts 'leeroy jenkins' though) and not feel that they are a freak or that they are strange.
So they were talking about another site called game politics, this site brings real life information on how video games are affecting society as a whole. So I was a little surprised to see an article cited from my ex-lecturer about how video-games objectify women, this is the same person who I remember took seminars where basically she was doing her casting call for her big brother career she held for a few years. It lacked the sight of someone who has a doctorate in psychology from me, someone who was in their 2nd year of a psychology degree, wondered where her citations to actual research actually were.
So the article started stating that her review was based on empirical research and as verbatim "not an opinion piece," but one constructed from "empirical data from peer reviewed journals".
his is a solid stat, you would think that this report would be laden with citations, and statistics, not something laden with mary whitehouse style derivations that the media uses to criticise video-games. She carries on this torrent by citing something that reminds me of a newer version of Godwins law "Violence against women is often trivialised. For example, in the game Rape-Lay…". There is one thing I know when anyone talks about violence against women in video-games, that is the longer the conversation goes on for more likely a reference to Rapelay will be made, until the probability of this becomes 1. This is a game that you cannot purchase legally from any other country than Japan, and popular opinion is not divided, but united in it's disgust for it (I decided not to include the other reference to GTA as I do not believe its treatment of women facilitates game progression as it does not in any way help you 'complete' the game).
In modern Britain there is a train of thought that video-games are explicitly made for children. THIS IS NOT TRUE. The gaming industry has one of the most strict, and best enforced rating systems in modern media, where retailers of these games score better than other areas in undercover stings by the BBFC.
I like most women do get bored of the multitude of helpless big-bewebed women you find in games, but I also see a plethora of women who will kick anyones behind whether with a gun, sword or even their hair as more and more female gamers / developers are getting in on the action.
As a final comment I do wonder why she is particularly targeting gaming. Everything is getting hyper-real in the gaming world but there are greater offenders of the objectification of women that she seems to miss out. Whether you read the papers or not you may know of the recommendation for airbrushed pictures in magazines / papers / posters to show what percentage has been altered. If you delve into any pre-teen magazine you will find many articles on 'how to please your man in 10 easy steps' or 'get your bikini body before summer'. This is the real problem, where being a woman is not enough if you do not please your man in the process, that you are less of a person just because you can't wear a bikini on the beach.
To end this rant, I also need to add that not only did this woman fail at conducting succinct seminars when i was in my late teens she also was the resident psychologist for 'Big Brother' is there any more evidence that this is not a objective empirical review.
Read the report on http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/Sexualisation-young-people.pdf.