I have just finished reading an article that's here on N4G that claims to analyze Anita Sarkeesian's Strengths and Weaknesses within her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series and there is a recurring theme. That theme is the idea of feminist critique. I thought I'd talk about that and other forms of critique but let's think about feminist critique shall we?
What is feminist critiquing? Well, it's literally how it sounds. Critiquing something through a feminist world view.
Feminism is defined, though not implemented, as "The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes."
Therefore critiquing a game through a feminist world view essentially means you're looking for anything that either positively advocates for women and their rights in games, or anything that is against women and their rights in games.
Why is this wrong? Simple. Critiquing a game with feminism is creating an environment where every idea about what video games are is completely removed in order to judge it's worthiness in advancing a particular political agenda. Games are entertainment, they're business, they're a consumer product, they can be education, and they are all art. Feminist critiquing of games completely removes all of that to create specific parameters that have nothing to do with a game's intended purpose, all with the desired end result being "does this make women's lives better or worse?" The answer is, neither. That's not what it's designed for.
Think of if there were a such thing as racial critique of games, and think of how that can balloon into the extreme. Would you want games to be critiqued with a supremacist world view? How does this game advance the white man's cause? What is this game doing to advance the goals of radical fundamentalist terrorists?
What about a species critique? Will games ever portray newts as intellectual equals to humans? Why aren't there more squid protagonists? Is the gaming industry invertebrate phobic?
Now obviously someone is going to come at this with "you can't compare feminism to Nazism or humans to animals you white cishet scum."
Why not? Feminism is an ideology for the advancement of the position of women in the world. Nazism is an ideology (or rather a political party, but these days you can say the same about feminism) for the advancement of the position of the Aryan race. Animals are living creatures that have the capacity to show emotion. So... what makes feminist critique ok?
Another reason, and probably the most important one, why ideological critiquing of games is wrong is that it's ultimately self-defeating. Games are business, that means that where the money is spent dictates where the trends will go. The idea that games that follow ideological parameters for the sake of representation and helping a cause is simply not feasible because taste is involved. If a game receives a check mark for meeting feminist standards, it means absolutely nothing if it sucks and no one cares to buy it. Feminism doesn't make good games, good ideas do. There's never going to be a guarantee that meeting representation goals will equal success, especially when it's been proven that most gamers do not associate themselves with game characters, save and except when they have a chance to actually make a character. Even then it's 50/50 as some will still make a character that is completely opposite to who they are as a person.
Games are also art, meaning that expecting games to follow an ideology can be antithetical to allowing artistic freedom of expression. Think of it as telling Leonardo Da Vinci that he could still paint the Mona Lisa, but he has to make sure that he paints another woman with her and they look like they are having a conversation about anything but men. Here he wanted to paint a portrait of someone in a particular style, but he's being nagged to ensure it follows these specific parameters else it's against women for some reason.
Many seem to think that critique can't be objective. That's definitely not true, but even if it was true that doesn't mean that critique should contain an ideology. That merely creates a very negative environment for everyone. It's like saying a specific culture is wrong because your culture says that doing ______ is offensive or disgusting. That culture can say the same thing about your culture and nothing positive comes out of either exchange.
Feminist critique has been responsible for essentially calling an entire industry of people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds not only an industry of white men, but also misogynist, sexist, homophobic, and racist. Every time Anita Sarkeesian makes a Tropes vs. Women video and she says something like "these themes are downright misogynistic" she's saying that the developers of whatever game or games she's talking about hate women. This despite not knowing anything about the developers and just criticizing the games based on the feminist world view that for some reason hates things like big boobs, men actually wanting to rescue the person they care about, and women being strong in any way other than a specific manner that doesn't make them look like a dude with boobs.
Would anyone here like to have their work be critiqued in such a way that it calls them racist, sexist, homophobic, or misogynist? I don't think so.
Ideological critique is not a beneficial way of critiquing anything that isn't trying to contain an ideological message. Ideological critique of any kind merely seeks to find, or invent, problems that aren't actually problems or are non-existent.
Game reviews are already a convoluted mess of poor scoring and backroom deals, do we really need to add this to it?
This looks like a great way to play.
Rocksmith+, the award winning music-learning app that teaches you guitar and piano with thousands of hit songs, is coming to PlayStation and Steam on June 6, and is available to wishlist now on both platforms.
EA says the next Battlefield game is being built by the "largest Battlefield team in history," and confirms the game is in a playable state.
“I’ve just spent a whole bunch of time with the collective Battlefield team, playing what they’re building and it is going to be another tremendous live service.”
It's just what gamers want, more live service garbage.
What Henderson has leaked so far is that ... even though the dev size's large, they are playing safe this time,
so I am guessing big budgeted BF3 2.0 ... fingers crossed
We don't need thousands of workers wasting their time and effort, for many years, on a live-service project nobody asked for.
Just take a dedicated small team and create a cool Battlefield GAME. Not a service, but a game. As in 10-12 Conquest maps, 4 classes, cool gameplay, done. That's it.
That doesn't need 3-4 years of development. That doesn't need thousands of employees. Just go back to basics; Release a cool game, let gamers buy and enjoy that game, and 1-2 years later you release a sequel. No 'service', no subsciption, no DLC, no seasons. Just a game. On its own. Done. 50 bucks.
This one is tricky with just a keyboard but here is a look at the early part of the game.
Well written piece, DragonKnight. I feel the need to point out that there is a difference between Feminists and Feminazis, the latter being more prevalent than the former. Feminism, as you said, is the simple concept of the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of equality between sexes; there are some places where feminism does not belong and video games is among those places.
When developers are making a game, they're not thinking about feminism or racism or sexism or any of those social isms. Developers are thinking of content that will add to the story narrative and the gameplay in appropriate ways. Anita Sarkeesian is one example of some people who shouldn't be allowed to speak, ergo, Feminazi. Anita's critique is nothing shy of stirring the proverbial pot without daring to lick the spoon.
Feminists want to ensure that women are given a fair shake and are being represented appropriately. Feminazis are women who feel the need to complain and nitpick about everything, calling everything racist or sexist or misogynistic just to get their way. It's terrible, really.
Good read.
I like the points you bring up in this blog.
I swear Feminazis are worse than the things they put down.
It's almost like: "My vagina needs verbal validation and my feelings must be coddled or else you men are all future rapists" and then you have some guys giving them that validation -usually in hopes of attracting female attention- which only furthers the loss of focus with the issue at at hand. I like how you mentioned the havoc that would be occurring if there was a focus on race, because I remember some people trying to poop in Nintendo's pie over the fact that Link is never portrayed as Black in the Legend of Zelda games-
Round my neck of the woods, we would call that person who feels like Link somehow NEEDS to be black- an idiot, a stealth racist, or both.
Yet somehow, this nitpicking of games with a Feminist filter is somehow gaining ground with some people...
Why? Because some people have their own agendas that they will stop at NOTHING to advance, and for these types of people, calling them idiots or deflecting their criticisms in a way that proves their initial immaturity or immature viewpoint is ineffective.
These people are typically so "blind" that they can't see anything straight and end up in car crashes the next day.
What can I say? Karma is a bitch, and these feminazis will have horrible, awful, empty lives with nothing but misery until they die so long as they choose to see the world in such a shallow and hypersensitive way.
I think the whole Gamergate needs to disappear as soon as it started. A metaphor for this is like people who are hobos on the side of the street asking for money saying how the world did them wrong.. But in reality, they are the ONLY ones to blame for their ongoing situation... simply because they choose not to accept things they can't change, change the things they CAN, and fuel their fires with excuses, justifications and anger. Becoming a better person who can see things for what they are isn't always easy, but it is always worth it.
Great article, as always, and you used a perfect example in your reply mentioning Roberta Williams, she is a real developer and a true contributor for gaming since a long time ago. Just making videos on Youtube, attacking games and knowing nothing about the industry, your history and don't playing any games at all, it doesn't make someone a good source for talking about the subject.
The thing that I wonder is.. if you think that these feminist critics are so redundant, why give them the oxygen of publicity/infamy by talking about them?
If someone's decided to pay them because it fulfils some agenda / money making idea of their own I can't stop them.
But I know that such capitalising om politics has nothing to do with passionate gaming journalists and fans alike.
Why not talk more about great gaming journalists or, indeed any 'amateur' (which need mean no more than unpaid) N4G writer?
You don't stop something by not talking about anything else than it. The question is why are people more inclined to take a feminist critique of games seriously than a gaming critique (e.g. about level design / art style) seriously?
Poor arts education that favours political debate over artistic skill in many nations, that's why.