This post is mostly in response to a conversation taking place in the comments of Zuzu’s thread about Wonder Woman over at feministe. The conversation about the cheese cakey/pin-uppy nature of comics (superhero comics, generally) was pretty interesting, but started to diverge from Zuzu’s point, so I thought I’d bring it over here to respond to Azundris’s points.
Note: I’m currently guest blogging for the week over at feministe. This was a post I put up earlier today, crossposted here, and at No Cookies For Me…. Enjoy…
As some of you may have noticed in my bio that Jill posted, I’m a self proclaimed geek. One thing that I’m particularly passionate about is video gaming. I’ve been a huge gamer for almost as long as I can remember. My father purchased one of our first gaming systems, waaay back in the 2600 days. I can still remember the first computer that my folks had- it used a cassette tape as data storage- and the games I used to play on it (basically, a really primitive version of Space Invaders… only, with a single enemy). I still remember the sense of excitement and wonder when my parents brought home the ol’ Tandy computer- it had color graphics and a floppy drive. That was a big deal. Twenty plus years, multiple computers, and over ten platforms later, I’m still an avid gamer.
In the over two decades that I’ve been playing, gaming has changed tremendously- systems are more powerful, the graphics are prettier, the controls are better, and the stories they can tell are more involved and interesting. Lately, I’ve been particularly interested in the stories. As a feminist, and a philosophy student, I’m particularly interested in the intersection of gaming and morality/ethics. Not in a casual “games are corrupting our society” sort of way- but in the ways that games contribute to and are effected by our society, and the ways that we can explore and learn about complicated moral issues through the use of games.
But…
I make no secret of the fact that I’m a gamer. I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember. My father loved video games and bought a 2600 when they came out. My parents picked up a computer back when they were using cassette tapes as data storage. Given how much I love video gaming, it should come as no surprise that I’m very interested in the intersection between my hobby and my socio-political beliefs. I’ve been really interested in how gaming and feminism intersect and overlap… if they do.
Women have really gotten a raw deal when it comes to gaming. Historically, games have been made by men for men. When most people think of a gamer, they probably think of either a child, or the stereotypical fan-boy living in a basement eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew (Sorry, Jimmycav). There may have even been a time when that was true, but now? No way. Gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s huge. It’s time for the industry to recognize the fact that roughly 43% of gamers are women, and quit churning out the typical sexist fanboy bullshit.
It’s time for women to be recognized as real gamers.
Over the past year or so, I’ve been commenting pretty regularly on a variety of feminist blogs. When krafty, here, started up 79 Soul, I jumped at the chance to be a part of the blogging community. 79 Soul is a fantastic site, and I love having a place to rant about video games and movies, and to share my love of geekdom with krafty, Jimmycav, and all of you.
The time has come for me to focus a blog more exclusively on the socio-political issues that are important to me. I’ll still be posting regularly here at 79 Soul, and will likely cross-post things that intersect where pop-culture and politics meet, but I really think that 79soul should be about entertainment and pop-culture, and I don’t want to try to force posts about my feminist leanings onto a site about music and movies.
Thus, No Cookies For Me is born.
It’ll be my new home for all my feminist rants and raves, and will let me stay focused on entertainment and geek culture here, and feminism and activism there.
h/t Literateria
What a great story! A young woman on her high school track team turns out to be almost a natural at the pole vault. She trains hard, breaks five national records, gets college scholarships, and turns into an internet phenomena because she’s so effing good at her event because she’s “hot”.
Let’s look at this for a moment:
Cara and Jenny Dreadful mentioned a story. It’s very upsetting, and disgusting.
I’m not sure exactly what to say about a case like this. Of course, someone is going to say “Well, we don’t know what happened!” or they’re going to say “Maybe she did consent!” or something like that.
When I talk about enthusiastic consent, it’s because of cases like this. A gang rape of a 17 year old girl by a team of college athletes while she’s passing out and covered in vomit?
And it’s NOT GOING TO TRIAL?!
You’ve got witnesses! My gods! What the hell does it take?!
It’s disgusting.
I received a note back about my complaint to Time Out New York, which I’m going to share here.
h/t from Cara at The Curvature.
Dear ”Time Out New York,”
When I worked at the bookstore of doom, we carried you. You always seemed like a pretty innocent sort of city guide magazine. You had covers about which restaurants to visit, clubs that were hot, that kind of thing. Nothing that ever really bothered me.
Then Cara pointed to your judge women “Sexy or Skanky?” feature.
This is one of those times where I feel like I should make my opinion known in no uncertain terms: It’s wrong to take candid pictures of total strangers walking around the city on their day-to-day lives without their permission and post them to the internet asking your readership to judge these women as “sexy” or “skanky.”
These aren’t celebs who sign up for public scrutiny by virtue of becoming celebs. These aren’t people who signed up for a contest to be judged. These aren’t people who are modeling outfits for a living. These are women (and, yeah, they’re all women- no men to be seen, thanks) who are going about their lives minding their own business and are now find their pictures up on the site asking your readership to judge them as either sexy or skanky.
Imagine that you (or your girlfriend/sister/mother, if you’re a guy) are walking around on a hot day. You’re just running a few errands and it’s hot as fuck out, so you decide to throw on some shorts and a tank-top. Next thing you know, this site has your picture up, and is asking people to say if you’re a skank or not.
You might be a little embarassed, yeah? Might you feel disgusted by the fact that people are passing judgement on you over something you weren’t aware of? Mighten you feel dirty knowing that someone out there felt privleged enough to take your body and put it on public display for sexual judgement without your consent?
So, yeah. Fuck you, Time Out.
It’d be bad enough if the article were just a “good outfit/bad outfit” judgement. I’d be annoyed, but I understand that sort of thing happens. It’d be embarassing enough to find your picture up on a site and have people saying that your outfit was ugly… but you specifically target this as being sexual. Every picture you put up is now framed as a woman who was trying to look good for the viewer, and is either sexy or skanky, no matter what they were thinking when they got dressed, or what they were wearing. It sends a pretty clear message: If you’re a woman in public, you’re sending a sexual message, and it better be one that we like.
It’s bullshit is what it is.
And the shots themselves are pretty telling. It doesn’t matter what women wear, it’s sexy or it’s skanky. Jeans and a t-shirt? Sexy or skanky. Cotton summer dress? Skanky or sexy. Capri pants and a button up? Sexy or skanky.
Way to intentionally set out to humiliate, objectify, and demean women, “Time Out.”
Again, lest my opinion isn’t absolutely clear:
Fuck you, Time Out.
I’m sending you a letter, and I’m probably going to be a lot less profane and a lot more direct, and I hope that my readers take a moment to do the same. This kind of entitled conduct is offensive, demeaning, and sexist.
Roy
P.S. Fuck you.
As I said yesterday, I gave Aliens a watch today. Before I get into the meat, let me just state how outstanding the presentation here is. A while back, I picked up the Alien Quadrilogy boxed set for something like 30 or 40 bucks used at Gamestop, and it’s beautiful. That comes out to about $5 a disc, in case you’re wondering. Awesome.
Anyway, as I said, this was prompted by a series of comments in the thread at Pandagon where Amanda reviewed 28 Days Later.
In particular, jamesf wrote:
I was extremely dissappointed that Romero followed up a film which is openly and directly critical of the military mind-set, with a film (”Land of the Dead”) that just sort of went back to same-ol’ tradition of lazily glamorizing military culture (see also: “Aliens,” every other James Cameron movie, and most war-themed action movies made since “Aliens”)
[Aliens] is 90% about being excited by marines with big awesome guns blowing up and getting blown up by bug-aliens. In all of Cameron’s movies, the only way women can be acceptable protagonists is if they’re intensely masculinized (see also: T2) Cameron wants to have his cake and eat it too. His idea of a “strong female character” is a hot girl with a bazooka. Not exactly feminism, in my book.
So, I watched Aliens with that criticism in mind. How did it fair?
If you read comic related blogs or feminist blogs, you’ve probably seen the controversy that’s erupted over a statue of Mary Jane that’s being produced. There are tons of sites linking to this story.
I think that it’s probably pretty obvious where I fall in this particular discussion. I was reading some of the sites talking about this, and one in particular caught my eye.
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