Midterm- Adrianne Shaw

4.  Shaw (linked here and in your syllabus) finds two problematic approaches to rectify the misrepresentation of women in games:  The "Add women and stir" approach (increasing the diversity of game-makers), and placing the burden of change on representatives from the marginalized group(s).  Choose one of these two approaches to write about in your blog.  What's the approach and what are issues related to the approach?  Then think beyond the problematic approaches:  How can we "create critiques of representation that are politically engaged enough to resist market logics and nimble enough to encompass interactive, personalized, customized media texts?"

 

In Shaw's piece, she talks about two different ways that people claim that sexism can be can be removed from video games where women are used as ""damsels in distress", "sexy sidekicks", and "rewards"."  One of the tactics people claim would work is called the "add women and stir" approach.  This approach claims that all videogame companies have to do is to hire women, and just their presence and input will erase the misogyny within gaming.   Shaw says that the issue is this "approach assumes that there are no structural limitations within the industry that preclude this representation, that men in the industry are simply incapable of creating texts that are not representations of themselves or their fantasies, and that all women are feminists."

 

The end of that quote is very important, not all women are feminists.  This could mean that videogame companies could go out and hire women that don't consider themselves feminists, so they are either less likely to fight sexism within videogames, or they may not even see it.  They could just see the sexism within all the videogames and not think twice about it because that's just the way that so many games are.  Plus, even if the gaming companies found female feminists that would try to fight misogyny within games, those women would probably face the same harassment as Sarkeesian and the other women within "Gamergate".

 

I feel like the only to "create critiques of representation that are politically engaged enough to resist market logics and nimble enough to encompass interactive, personalized, customized media texts" is to get all feminist gamers, no matter their gender, race, or any other identities, need to join together and hold gaming companies to hire standards.  The biggest thing is that women and other members of marginalized groups cannot be fighting on their own, there needs to be allies (people with privilege fighting for the people with less privilege) supporting their voices.

 

-Matt