Women and videogames: blog tasks

 Part 1: Background reading on Gamergate

Read this Guardian article on Gamergate 10 years on. Answer the following questions:

1) What was Gamergate? 

A harassment campaign that broadened to include all women working in video game development or the gaming press, as well as the industry’s LGBTQ+ community.

2) What is the recent controversy surrounding narrative design studio Sweet Baby Inc? 

Sweet Baby Inc is secretly forcing game developers to change the bodies, ethnicities and sexualities of video game characters to conform to “woke” ideology. They think that Sweet Baby has written and controlled almost every popular video game of the past five years, shutting straight white men out.

3) What does the article conclude regarding diversity in videogames?

Nobody is forcing diversity into video games. It is happening naturally, as players and developers themselves diversify. Gamergate didn’t intimidate women out of video games 10 years ago, and we won’t be intimidated now.

Part 2: Further Feminist Theory: Media Factsheet

Use our Media Factsheet archive on the M: drive Media Shared (M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets) or here using your Greenford Google login. Find Media Factsheet #169 Further Feminist Theory, read the whole of the Factsheet and answer the following questions:

1) What definitions are offered by the factsheet for ‘feminism ‘and ‘patriarchy’?

Feminism is a movement which aims for equality for women – to be treated as equal to men socially, economically, and politically.

Feminism is focused on highlighting the power and suppressive nature of the patriarchy (male dominance in society).

2) Why did bell hooks publish her 1984 book ‘Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center’?

She had identified a lack of diversity within the feminist movement, and argued that these diverse voices had been marginalised, being put outside the main body of feminism.

3) What aspects of feminism and oppression are the focus for a lot of bell hooks’s work?

hooks used her work to offer a more inclusive feminists theory that advocated for women within a sisterhood to acknowledging and accepting their differences.

She argues that male involvement within the equality movement was important, encouraging men to do their part.

4) What is intersectionality and what does hooks argue regarding this?

The term intersectionality is used to describe overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. Its meaning is that multiple identities intersect to create a whole that is different from separate component identities.

bell hooks argues that experiences of class, gender, sexuality etc cannot be completely understood if the influences of racialisation are not considered. hooks argues that understanding intersectionality is vital to gaining political and social equality and improving our democratic system.

5) What did Liesbet van Zoonen conclude regarding the relationship between gender roles and the mass media?

Van Zoonen concludes that there is a strong relationship between gender (stereotypes, pornography and ideology) and communication, but it is also the mass media that leads to much of the observable gender identity structures in advertising, film and TV.

6) Liesbet van Zoonen sees gender as socially constructed. What does this mean and which other media theorist we have studied does this link to?

“the conditions and the forms in which meaning and value are structured and articulated within a society” (Corner, 1991). Feminist media studies focus on how gender is communicated within the media.

It links to Gauntlett as acts are socially constructed as well as gender fluidity. Also can link to Judith Butlers theory of gender performativity where Identity is a performance, and it is constructed through a series of acts and expressions that we perform every day

7) How do feminists view women’s lifestyle magazines in different ways? Which view do you agree with?

Feminists view these women lifestyle magazines as a way to tell them how to be a perfect mother, lover, wife, homemaker, glamorous accessory, secretary – whatever suits the needs of the system. Its a way to present themselves the way men want to see them. I agree with this but also the  last sentence as they should not be seen, objectified or controlled by men they can be the character and what they want to be and not how men want them to be, however some magazines to present them that way and believe how they should be or who they should act.

8) In looking at the history of the colours pink and blue, van Zoonen suggests ideas gender ideas can evolve over time. Which other media theorist we have studied argues things evolve over time and do you agree that gender roles are in a process of constant change? Can you suggest examples to support your view?

George Gerbner cultivation theory talks about how patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way the audience perceives the world. Gender roles are in a process of change as everyone has access to construct their own identity through the influence of technology and various media platforms. They are no longer a passive audience and now can interact with many types of media through different ways to express their own opinions breaking out of this socially constructed bubble. Examples can be see through the character from the game Leagues of Legend, Vi who was seen through the male gaze with over exaggerated body parts and revealing clothes. However, through the adaptation of the series she was re designed by the fans suggestions, created to be seen through female gaze and subverting typical stereotypes for a women.

9) What are the five aspects van Zoonen suggests are significant in determining the influence of the media?

• Whether the institution is commercial or public

• The platform upon which they operate (print versus digital media)

• Genre (drama versus news)

• Target audiences

• The place the media text holds within the audiences’ daily lives

10) What other media theorist can be linked to van Zoonen’s readings of the media?

We can link Stuart Hall’s negotiated readings, who states that they are subsequent focus on the way meanings are encoded and decoded “implies acknowledgement of gender construction as a social process in which women and men actively engage.”

11) Van Zoonen discusses ‘transmission models of communication’. She suggests women are oppressed by the dominant culture and therefore take in representations that do not reflect their view of the world. What other theory and idea (that we have studied recently) can this be linked to?

Bell Hooks intersectionality can be linked to how intersections of gender, race, class and sexuality to create a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, and these ideologies dominate media representations.

12) Finally, van Zoonen has built on the work of bell hooks by exploring power and feminism. She suggests that power is not a binary male/female issue but reflects the “multiplicity of relations of subordination”. How does this link to bell hooks?

They both agre on constructing identies and gender socially like the public or the media