I've Decided That It's Simple After All

After reading through the thread on feministing, I've figured how to articulate why the violence against prostitutes in GTA bothers me so much. (by stealing from everyone else, of course)

Robos A Go Go argues

Shooting at police, stealing cars, and running down pedestrians are widely discouraged in other areas of life. Sexism and violence against prostitutes is not. In fact, many people feel that prostitutes invite violence upon themselves by virtue of the "choice" they make, or at the very least accept abuse of sex workers as a matter of course rather than a problem that should be as much of a concern as random assaults of pedestrians and law enforcement officers.

yup, yup, yup

Later, noname asks

Where in that video.... did you see forcibly performed sex acts?

doh, how silly of me, none of the prostitutes ever say "no!" There's no sexualized violence here!

More seriously, correct me if I'm wrong, but none of the prostitutes who are "propositioned" ever say "no," yes? Which means that instead of going right out and making it "real" rape, Rockstar has instead chosen to hide behind rape apology arguments (prostitutes never say no) in order to make sexual violence more palatable. Kudos to you Rockstar!

(Also, I'm fairly certain that the police occasionally survive one's attack. In fact, they have guns, themselves, yes? As do other characters? But do the prostitutes have weapons? Are they occasionally not dumb as rocks and aware that johns often want to hurt them? Do you ever get to proposition women who are not prostitutes or strippers? I think I may die of shock if any of these are ever true.)

nonam also tries to argue

There is an anti-male equivalent to killing prostitutes. Killing men.

just _pat points out what should be obvious:

That's not equivalent at all. I can't kill men:
a) As a member of the opposite gender.
b) As someone who is paying them for sex.
c) As someone being paid BY them for sex.

I also can't go to a club and wait for asshole guys to try to pick me up and/or drug me, only to pull out a weapon and exact vengeance upon them.

There's no equivalent.

sgzax adds what should be even more obvious:

Yes, because there are two sexes: male and prostitute. Exactly. Thank you noname for playing all your cards at once like that.

spike the cat then gives us our deep thought for the day:

People just won't admit that killing feels good. But killing a ho feels even better.

Funny, I thought that whole visceral reaction I was talking about earlier was because while killing (in video games) rates as a "meh" to "gotcha!" in my book, murdering prostitutes makes me want to barf.

Update:

Kristen answers the "can they say no?" question.

The hookers even have to like you enough to let you pick them up.

Interesting.

I disagree with her assertion that "There is no sexual violence in this game," however. There may be no outright rape, but if you watch IGN's fan trailer...oh, wait, you can't because IGN took it off their site. (dorks) It's on youtube though. no idea for how long. Anyway, if you listen to the trailer, ("I'm a hired killer and I pay for sex. My mother would be ashamed") "violence" and the "sex' are hardly divided into neat little categories. Sexualized violence isn't just about rape, after all. Often it's simply about normalizing the idea that they go hand in hand.

I Don't Get It

People that normally make a lot of sense to me have tried to defend GTA to me before.

The advances in game play are mentioned. I am reminded that it is a game, it's not real. It is explained to me that no, there isn't anything anymore disturbing about controlling such action than there is watching it in a movie. And that, of course, the game actually discourages such behavior - really!

But I still don't get. I still don't buy it.

(Perhaps partly because I think sexualized violence poorly done and overdone in most movies as well.)

I don't "get it" anymore than I'd "get" a video game where players go around trying to lynch PoC.

But my reaction to it is more emotional and less intellectual that it is to things like Resident Evil 5. Which means that I have a lot of work to do on becoming a better ally, and that I have a really hard time coming up with coherent arguments that explain how not ok this is.

The whole "boys don't read bc its' something girls do, and girls have cooties!" is making the rounds again.

And once again, everyone's solution is to give them reading material (often comics) that screams "Boy! Boy! Boy! Boys only! No girls allowed!"

Which means that once again, everyone is failing to note that:

1) Comic stores may still be mainly for boys. Comics themselves? Not so much. Graphic novels? Not at all. Yes, there are certainly more "boy" comics than "girl" comics. But walking a reluctant reader over to the J GN section of their local library isn't all that likely to stop them from thinking that reading is for girls.

2) Giving boys "boy books" hardly addresses the root problem. Which is not just that reading is seen as something that girls and women do, but that boys can't (shouldn't?) do anything that is for girls.

3) Inasmuch as the lack male role models in early educational environments seems to be why boys see reading as "feminized" - rather than the actual material itself (which still feature more boys than girls, btw) - wouldn't recruiting more men to be kindergarten and (gasp!) preschool teachers be a better solution? (Oh, but then we may have to pay the latter decent salaries. And stop pretending that men can't be nurturing/that any man who likes small children is a predator.)

4) As my brother points out, guys don't read as much because they have more "choices." In other words, they are more likely to go to the movies or play video games. Both of which, especially the latter, tend to be made for and advertised at them more than women/girls. (Solution: Make more video games for girls! And stop pretending that teen girls don't go to movies!)

5) It's mostly only non-white and working class boys that fall behind their female peers in reading. Upper class white boys still beat everyone. Which means that there is more happening than just reading being considered feminine.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for efforts like Guys Read - as band-aids.

But....can we all get started on some long term solutions sometime this century?

Please?

Me Want Wii

I really wish I had more intelligent things to write about with regards to the latest issue of Cerise, but that's pretty much all I can think about after reading this article.


On a related and more depressing note, my father and I had the following (one-sided) conversation earlier today:

(important background - my new job means I'll have enough $ for an apartment within the next 2-4 months; I borrowed my brother's Playstation2 last March and he finally asked for it back a few weeks ago)

Me: "I hadn't realized how cheap dvd players had gotten in the last few years. Last time I looked it was only the knockoffs that were really cheap, the regular brands were still $100 or more. Now even the good brands are well below that."

(pause)

Me: "You know what though, I saw a used Playstation2 advertised for not much more than that the other day. Now that the PS3 has been out for a while, they are really starting to come down. I might look into that and see if I can get one for about the same price as a dvd player."

Dad: starts listing off prices for dvd players that he's found online.

wtf?

I kinda think that "dvd player/game console" will be taken off the list of "suggested housewarming presents" - I'm far too likely to get what my family thinks I'll use/want rather than what I really would use/want.

Although, to be fair, maybe he doesn't know the PS2s play dvds as well? (But we went through this the last time I moved out, when my younger brother and I shared an apartment - my brother convinced me that PS2 was the way to go and I was very glad he did.) In any case, I'm certain that he has no idea how many games I own.

(And yes, it's very spoiled of me to be expecting housewarming gifts above $20 - or at all, but I also know that my parents and older sister are going to be so thrilled when I finally move out that there's a decent chance I'll be getting such gifts from both of them. My older sister has already said as much when we were discussing Christmas gifts and lists - she pretty much told me that dvd player was too cheap, that it would make a better housewarming present than a Christmas gift, is there anything else I want?)

Look Ma! A New Class of Vertebrata!

Dear Jellvision,

Rodents are mammals too.

I think the word you were looking for is....um....Badger, actually.

Who doesn't know jack now?

Now I'm Never Going to Get Any Work Done

Thanks, Lyle

Btw, when you sign up (which you don't have to do to play, just to kep a record of your scores), the choices for gender are:

M
F
MTF TG
FTM TG
Not sure

Than it asks

What is your sex

Which is a fill in the blank question

I'm guessing it's mostly there as a joke, but it's kinda nice to see something besides "male or female" in any case. And hey, I'm all for smart jokes that point out that "sex" and "gender" are not the same thing.

Oh, yeah, and, I don't know jack.

Games Good, Books Bad?

In a recent discussion over a Feminist Gamers, the topic of controversies over books versus controversies over games came up.

(pretty much, someone said something to the effect of "books never get treated this way!" and I called bullshit.)

Might Ponygirl replied with

But I think that videogames just don’t enjoy the sort of support in their controveries that books do.

Which is true, but "books have it bad too!" really wasn't the point I was trying to make. But then I wasn't really sure what my point was at the time, and my point wasn't the topic of discussion. The good news: I figured out what I want to say, and I have my own blog to say it at.

And really, I did say it in my comment over there, I just didn't explain it very well.

[P]eople rarely see “bad” books as evidence that books are bad, even though that’s exactly what they do when it comes to TV, movies, and games.

The flipside to this - the one that people rarely see - is that this also means that you now have the issue of what qualifies as a book. Most often, the debate is phrased as whether something is "really" literature. In my line of work the question often becomes whether it's something the parent will accept as fulfilling the requirement that they "read more and goof around less." (Needless to say, graphic novels rarely count, despite their growing popularity.)

Like a lot of common misconceptions, this doesn't seem, on the face of it, like a bad thing. And it isn't always. Parents should push their kids to to challenge themselves, and I don't believe that kids get as much from reading Goosebumps as they get from reading Bridge to Terabithia.

But there's the catch, the requirement that they get something out of it. Pleasure apparently doesn't qualify as "something" in that sentence.

(And now my ADD brain is remembering a conversation I had recently with someone about how we don't get enough vacation time. Back to the topic at hand....)

Whenever I suggest a book, and the kid says yes but the parent says no, it's almost always because it's not "serious" enough. Whenever a kid asks for a book, and the parent says no, the most common reason given (aside from cost) is that it's not "what they should be reading" - as in, you should be reading something that isn't called Captain Underpants and isn't full of pictures.

Now, I'm not saying that books have it worse than games. They don't. (Recent library workshop aside) Games can only dream of qualifying as worthwhile in their own right, rather than as a way to trick kids into doing something worthwhile. Even TV, which I think is much more limited in possible educational value than video games are, is more likely to be labeled as educational than any video game. What I'm saying is that the problems that books do have overlap with the problems that games have, so displays of sibling rivalry are hardly helpful.

Lauren wrote at Feministe that

The part that’s insidious for me is labeling the [Baby Einstein] videos “educational” when “entertainment” is clearly more honest. When parents start scheduling them into the child’s day, they’re doing so in their children’s best interest, but potentially to the detriment of the child’s education. Especially when a parent who is interesting in helping to further the child’s education might have better tools available to them for a similar price.

And I have to agree. But the problem is that you aren't supposed to give anything to small children that isn't explicitly educational, so there's really no other way to market them except to say that they are good because they are educational. And the AMA's dishonesty about why such videos are bad for kids** gives the companies even more incentive to lie about their product than they would have otherwise. Disney can't make ads simply saying that they are the best entertainment videos for babies and toddlers (even though I think they are) because such things are not supposed to exist.

One thing I do disagree with Lauren about is the type of educational value the Baby Einstein's videos have. Supposedly, it's all in rote learning - people seem to think the videos act like flash cards. However, If you watch the videos it's clear that kids mostly learn from them by processing the stories, the same kind of learning that we supposedly encourage when the stories are told through other mediums. To me, this confusion implies that the value we place on storytelling depends highly on the medium through which the story is told. Which, in turn, suggests that the greatest value we place on storytelling is on it's ability to familiarize children with the "right" kinds of mediums - or facts and skills. Stories themselves have dubious value, perhaps because their intent is to entertain as well as teach. The perception seems to be that, once kids can read, unless they are clearly "reading to learn" something specific, reading is not always good for them.

****************

Books are challenged and banned for all kinds of reasons, but there is a common thread running through all the challenges to books for children*** - and no, it's not religious beliefs or sexual content. It's whether or not the book counts as "literature." Controversial topics are usually considered ok, so long as the book is clearly lecturing at them. That's why books are more likely to get support when they are challenged. Since it's the actual message itself that's being debated and not the basic content, you have an easier time finding people who agree with the message strongly enough to fight for it.

The children's novels that made it to the ALA's top ten challenged books for 2006 are the Gossip Girls series, the Alice series, The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, the Scary Stories series, Athletic Shorts, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Chocolate War****. The adult novels are Beloved and The Bluest Eye. So, sex, obviously, is a big no-no. And anything that suggest that the white, heterosexual man is not the center of the universe.

But apparently, kids having fun isn't really a good thing either.

(In fact, I'd say this is a big part of why sex is a no-no. Sex without procreation has no value other than fun.)

While there are plenty of books that kids ask for by name because they have to read it, there are fewer that kids ask for because they want to read them. Yet, out of all seven of the kid's books on that list, there are only two books that I've never been asked for by name, by a kid, who wanted to read it for fun. I'm not going to count the hundreds of thousands of books in the store and library to do the math, but fairly certain that 70% of the books in either place don't fit into that category.

Even more than that, four of those books are ones that reluctant readers - several, in fact - have asked for by name. I don't need to do the math to be absolutely certain that the number of books in the store and library that fit into that category is much, much lower than 50+ percent.

Now, again, I'm all for parents pushing kids to challenge themselves.

Still, I find it telling that the Gossip Girls is number two on the list of most challenged books for 2006, and yet the CW started a new series based on the books this fall. (Presumably aimed at a similarly aged audience.)

The contrast between the Harry Potter movies' sucess and book challenges made more sense, because it tends to be just a select group of people who dislike Harry Potter so much that they think kids shouldn't read it. But nobody likes the Gossip Girls. Well, no adult anyway. So while I'm sure that there are lots of kids who will be told that they can't read or watch Gossip Girls, I'm sure there's also a great many whose parents and teachers and librarians try to talk them out of reading Gossip Girls but whose parents won't care about them watching Gossip Girls any more or less than any other TV show.

Now, parents don't hate these books because they are fun, they just see fun as having extremely limited value.***** There's this idea that's taken root in our collective minds that, unless something is explicitly educational or healthy, it's probably bad for kids.

Or maybe it's that, if kids are having fun, they can't possibly be learning as well. So it's one thing for them to watch Gossip Girl, it's another for them to suck all the educational value out of reading by reading trashy books.

I think it's probably both, depending on the situation.

We need to educate people on the health and educational benefits that video games have. The internet and TV too. But we need to advocate for kids' right to have fun as well. Even if for no other reason than because the idea that fun is a privilege, not a right, leads us to cut off kids access to things that are explicitly good for them. Like exercise (ie, recess) for grade schoolers, or books for reluctant readers. Even the dynamic that Lauren decries in her post is one in which parents choose to have their kids watch Baby Einstein videos rather than play in healthier ways because the supposed rote learning they get from the videos is thought of as more educational that the learning they get through play.





*That and we think kids are really stupid - Baby Einstein couldn't possibly teach through stories because babies are too young to process stories. Never mind that they do so all the time. (I let go, it falls.)

**All kinds of studies supposedly say that any time watching TV lowers vocabulary, but I've yet to see one that doesn't make some stupid decision, like not control for time spent talking to parents or lumps kids who watch TV and play with books with kids who just watch TV.

***Children's books that children are meant to read themselves, rather than books like And Tango Makes Three which is primarily meant to be read to them.

****The common perception is that The Chocolate War is literature, but it's placement on the list is a holdover from when this was not the common perception, back when it came out and, along with The Outsiders and other peers, created the YA genre.

****We also think kids are excessively stupid. Like, kids who will be able to vote in two years are completely and totally unable to distinguish fact from badly written wish-fulfillment fiction. Have I mentioned that yet?

Going Round in Circles

Yet another good example of why "the fan base demographics is the reason for character demographics" argument is a circular argument - and a blindingly stupid one at that:

PlasmaRit takes on David Gardner of EA games at Girl in the Machine (hat tip Jade Reporting), and his reasoning for why women don't like games, and finds him unable to differentiate between inclusiveness and variety of game play (and therefore unable to recognize that both are appealing).

The Logic

So - one common explanation for the gender breakdown of characters in games is the gender demographics of people who play games.

One common explanation for the gender breakdown of characters in action (or scifi, etc.) movies is the gender demographics of people who go to see action movies.

The idea, I guess, is that men consume the media, men make the media, and men sell the media - so the media is about men.

Simple and certainly not lacking in truth - if we stop there.


A Thought Experiment

Let's suppose a director generally known for making action movies makes a disaster movie where the action centers around a young woman who falls in love with someone unsuitable during the disaster (and the days leading up to it). Let's have some fun here and pretend this movie was not only a blockbuster, but was a blockbuster because women made it one. I know, I know, that's practically impossible, but hey! crazier things have happened....

Now let's say we want to recreate that success. Or at least learn some lessons from it. What lessons have we learned?

a) women like movies with suspense and action

b) women like movies about relationships

c) women like movies in which they are actually included

d) all of the above

e) none of the above



The Non-Earth Logic

According to "the fan base demographics is the reason for character demographics" argument. The answer is either C or D.

Except that apparently it's not, because the argument is most often used to explain why certain genres tend to exclude female characters, but not why women are less likely to consume media that falls into these genres. No one ever says "But women watch TV less!" in response to accusations of sexism within that medium. But they do say things like:

"Women are treated badly in comics!" - >"That's because women are treated badly in real life."

"Most action heroes are men." -> "Men like action more."

While not always explicitly stated, it's common use as a response to accusations of inequality suggests that the people who make such responses believe that, rather than character and fan demographic affecting each other, the latter affects the former, but the former doesn't affect the latter.

Plus, this seems to only work when sexism needs defending. While the demographics arguments in this thread - both of the "reflecting the fan base" variety and "reflecting real life" variety - are not explicitly saying such arguments apply only to certain shows/games/genres, such logic is required for the argument to work.

Either that, or aliens swooped down and hijacked TV producers minds, resulting in an overabundance of female detectives.

Just sayin'

ddr in schools

Just in case anyone hadn't heard this story yet, one of the bits of information given to us at the workshop I went to today (on Gaming @ Libraries) is that Virginia middle schools are using Dance Dance Revolution in PE classes.


Apparently, the kids love it.

So far.

:)

Gaming @ the Library

I just got home from workshop about gaming @ the library. We got lots of good info, even though it was very much an overview, we didn't get into much detail. The best part though, was that our presenter arranged for Game Crazy to come by with a Wii set up to play Wii sports and an XBox set up top play Guitar Hero.

I soooo want a Wii now. I just wish they weren't $300+.

Plus, all our workshops should be this fun.

Well, I'm a Queen - Shouldn't I Have Crown?

I am alive.

I promise.

I've just been busy busy busy. And zipping through season one of Heroes. (Which I have plenty to complain and rave about.)

But, of course, I ran across this and this just a few minutes ago while looking for this game on my parents desktop (thus the lack of bookmark) - and I had to comment on it.

I stumbled across Lifetime Games a year or so ago after looking up some schedule information. (I have no idea what, so don't ask. But I did watch and enjoy a couple of the Lifetime adaptations of Nora Robert's novels if that helps you imagine what it might have been.) Anyway, I guess I'm a walking stereotype, because, yeah, I like puzzle games. So I started playing some.

(And yes, I've played the makeover game as well. It's like digital paper dolls for grown-ups.)

Now, I'm hardly one to commend Lifetime for creating a sudoku filled with shopping icons instead of numbers. (God, that is one annoying game. I hate Sudoku and Mah Jong games where the icons are overly detailed.) I really don't see why my favorite game has to be called Princess's Tiara, either.

However, something smells fishy about the Joystiq and Kotaku articles. Mainly that they seem to be as condescending towards women as they accuse Lifetime of being. After all, why not have a game called Sally's Salon? And is the makeover game really fundamentally any different than the Superhero generator that was floating around the blogs a few weeks ago?

Sure, It really doesn't need to be called Princess's Tiara, but there's no reason why it shouldn't either. Maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that the boys over at Joystiq and Kotaku* are really cringing because it is all so very very pink and princessy, and not because Lifetime's game selection is limited and reinforces stereotypes.

Very few of us want to be girly girls all the time. But a great number of us like doing some of the girly girl stuff some of the time. That''s part of why variety is good and stereotypes are bad. But variety means just that: variety, not just girls getting to do what they boys always got to do. There's a lot that Lifetime does that annoys me, but as long as the kewl kids act like pink = cooties, ideas like "Lifetime: Everything Under the Sun for Women" will be popular because it will be the one place where we can go and be a girly girl and not be looked down upon for being a girly girl.

I think it's stupid when Sega designs a series of games for girls that reinforces stereotypes, but that doesn't mean I think that's it's a bad idea to have a game called Sally's Salon - or even a game about taking care of babies. I just think it's dumb that they are targeted to girls, and that only that kind of stuff is targeted to girls.

I also think there's a difference between when a company that has proven to be popular among adult women, and is partly run by adult women, teams up to deliver stereotypical games targeted at adult women and when a game company that isn't known for either of these things makes such games and targets them to girls. Neither situation is completely evil or completely good, but they aren't equal, either.

*The Kotaku article may have been written by a woman, it doesn't have a byline.

16th Feminist SF Carnival

Welcome to the 16th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans!

Before we start, I have a confession to make.

I like science fiction, I really do. Fantasy too. I like the world-building and the hypothetical plots, the technology and the magic. All the things that make it science fiction and/or fantasy instead of something else.

But I have to admit that part of my love for scifi/fantasy is really a love for action heroes. More specifically, female action heroes. I spent a lot of time as a kid looking for adventure stories that featured - or at least included - girls, and a lot of them ended up being science fiction and/or fantasy stories. Women with swords, girls with magical powers, heroines with blasters. For some reason, leaving this world behind and building another made it easier for writers - and their audiences - to wrap their head around the idea that girls could love action and adventure.

When I was younger, the main obstacle to finding girl heroes seemed to be the relative lack of them. As I got older, I kept running into the uspoken and rarely broken rule that, when they existed, action heroines must be sexbots first and action heroes last. So when I stumbled across the Ask.com commercial featuring "chicks with swords" (via The Hathor Legacy), I knew that had to be the theme when I hosted the carnival.

So without further ado, here is the 16th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans, chock filled with sword carrying women and all kinds of other great - or not so great - stuff.


It's a bird. It's a plane....it's Supergirl!

My thoughts on the new incarnation of Supergirl lean towards gibberish along the lines of "Pretty. Shiny. Me like. Me want more."

Fortunately, others have been much more loquacious than I.

First off, ami at Super Cute Rants of DOOM XD (totally the best blog title ever) writes about why she loves Supergirl:

Why do all heroes have to be angsty and mean? Why do they all need "reasons" to be heroes?

Can't we have some heroes who are just good ppl and dun have to become good ppl?

Why do girls need to be abused or live on the streets or be hookers in order to be heroes?

Can't they just crash land on a planet and be a hero? :D

...

Aren't we even allowed a few happy heroes? :)

Indeed, why must heroes always have "motivation"? I like characters with depth, but I don't think that means their reason for being good always needs to be complex.


Anyway, back to Supergirl.

Kalinara is one of the many who loves the latest issue of Supergirl:

Yes. Thank you.

That's what a real teenaged girl looks like. That's even what a real teenaged girl wears....She looks amazing.....Bedard's character is one I want to read about. Guedes's is one I want to see.

Brown Betty's praise is simple but oh so true for oh so many of us:

I just look at it and *siiiiiiiigh* with happiness.

A lot of the gushing over Guedes' art and Bedard's writing has happened in the forums, so I thought I'd include a few quotes from the ones hosted by Girl-Wonder.org (which I'm not sure is technically allowed, but I love this Supergirl so much I don't care!):

I have all-around feelings of joy for this issue. ^^

At last, fantastic artwork (only one upskirt shot and it didn't feel like fanservice because of the shorts!). And Supergirl actually tried to do something to fix her mistakes instead of just wallowing in it.

-Linkara

I loved this issue so hard. Supergirl - and the other characters! - looked human, and instead of sulking about her mistakes, which were so very much those of a superpowered teenager with a lot of naivety, she tried to do something about them.

-KPhoebe

For sure, the art in this was WONDERFUL. And I love how Supergirl and Wondergirl, despite both having blue eyes and blond hair, actually LOOK like two different women.... I really like how Supergirl is obviously a very young girl who is trying really hard to be a good hero.

-Caribou23

Which brings us to the very sad news that a new creative team has been announced for Supergirl (via Occasional Superheroine)

Crash! SMASH! KABOOM!

(sorry for the interruption, that was my house blowing apart from the sheer amount of despair and rage inside my brain)

However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't still write to DC (if you haven't already) and tell them how much you are loving Guedes' and Bedard's Supergirl. Occasional Superheroine has some tips. (If you do, please keep in mind that Guedes' and Bedard's run was always meant to be temporary. Their departure is not (necessarily) a reaction to the idiots who think that Guedes' Supergirl is fat.)



Hermione is always right, unless she's being emotional.

(needless to say, do not click any of the links unless you've finished the series or don't mind spoilers.)

Over at Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty, Maia hones in on one of the main complaints I've been hearing about Deathly Hallows:

'I'm going to leave you because I'm putting you in danger' is my least favourite relationship device ever.....What I find so frustrating about this, is that limiting women's choices for them is portrayed as a romantic act....Loving someone shouldn't mean limiting their agency.

*e, at A Blog Without A Bicycle, ponders the newest movie villian and brings up a good point:

"...I just wish that it wasn't her (overly) stereotypical "feminine" traits that made [Umbridge] so memorable. What if a female villan was just...villanous?"

I'll admit to being one of the many who enjoyed Imelda Staunton's Umbridge, but it does bring up the classic feminist dilemma when it comes to femininity: how does one analyze the limitations created by traditional femininity, or create a feminine villian, without bashing femininity itself? Hopefully with more finesse than the movie manages to have.


Sara of Sara Speaking discovers that sometimes gems do lurk within Amazon forums, after stumbling across this excellent question about power and gender in Potterverse:

I can understand how men would be better at physical fighting than women, but simply waving a wand in the air using spells based on pure intelligence….??? Hello?????......Where was the female equivalent of Dumbledore?

Sara adds:

I find it a very valid question, especially since it’s a fantasy book. Why should it have to conform so closely to the male-dominant standards of the society we already have?....And why, oh why, is it called the wizarding world — when there is a clear gender-based differences between wizards (men) and witches (women)?

I think that fireeyedgirl sums up a lot of feminist fans' feelings towards the series as a whole when she writes that

I don't hate the Harry Potter books because of [it's treatment of female characters], I just am sad because I feel like there was potential in this series, written by a woman who is also the mother of a daughter, for a rebel girl heroine who breaks rules and succeeds.

All of which makes it that much sweeter to learn (via Jessica at Feministing) that Emma Watson, the talented young woman made famous by her role as the always clever Hermione Granger, considers herself to be "a bit of a feminist."

And on that note, Sara also points us to an illustration by makani of one of the few showdowns between female characters in the series.



"No....there is another."

There's a great article over at Jive Magazine about why "Star Wars fans hate Star Wars."

Never is this more true than when it comes to feminist fangirls who love Leia. (ie people like me) The knowledge that Leia was capable of becoming a Jedi, and yet was not the one who brought about the Return of the Jedi epitomizes why being a feminist SF fan is often a bittersweet experience.

Princess Leia was My First Idol, my first hero, the kind of princess I've always wanted to be.

She didn't just wait around and pray to be rescued.....[and] She told the scary bad guy that had us all quaking in our boots to fuck off.

And guess who else loves Leia:

“Outta my way, nerf-herders. Guess it’s up to me to save our skins—again! ZAP!”

- from the always amusing mind of Meg Cabot.

No wonder why Mia is such an awesome princess.


Also, fellow Star Wars fan Sarah (Still Life With Soup Can) made some cool shirts for herself at Cafe Press and was surprised when other people bought them. I'm not surprised that the most popular are her Girl Revan shirts mocking "LucasFolk['s decision] to go and ruin the fun by declaring "Canon Revan" to be a light side male." Revan being a playable character in various Star Wars games, for the two people other than me who are unfamiliar with the name.



"It Slices, it Dices, and Makes Julienne Preacher." - And Other Sharp, Shiny Objects

Yes, I know Buffy's signature weapon was a wooden stake, but let's face it, we all loved her best when she was wielding something sharper than the pointy end of a picket fence. Which may be why Grace's summation of the best and worst of Buffy at Heroine Content features Buffy with a sword, not a stake. Like me, Grace

didn't watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it was first aired...[does]not believe the show deteriorated when it moved to the UPN.... [and] loved it from start to finish...

she adds

All that being said, I've never seen anything on television so in need of feminist and anti-racist analysis as Buffy. The show gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "so close but so far away."

At 100LittleDolls, Shions_Glasses also reminds us that sexism often goes hand in hand with racism. (warning: spoilers for Rogue Galaxy within)

Of course the only woman of color in the game has to hail from a "backwards" tribal jungle planet. .....On top of that, her bow is pretty worthless in combat.

Obviously, Lilika deserves better clothes, a better backstory, and a better weapon. XD

A sword, maybe? ; I


Amber Night finds yet another fantasy game with sword-wielding women sporting unlikely armor.

in the world of WAR, do they just go for the legs? ....You could make an entire suit of normal armor just out of her leg armor. Which…you know…probably would have been a good idea, given that her guild seems to be short on armorers able to craft from the crotch up.

Meanwhile, Tekanji uses a picture of a sword carrying girl to demonstrate (at Shrub.com) the dangers of assuming that your good intentions will mean your message is clear, even when the context is ambiguous. (I'm not going to quote the posts because it's more of an audience participation experiment. Just follow the links. It will take you to the girl and her bloody sword and explain who she is.)


"We rule Terabithia, and nothing crushes us!"

Alice, at Wonderland gives us some pictures of the incredibly awesome woman who won BlizzCon's costume contest, and her kickass getup.


BomberGirl (Girl in the Machine) talks about why she loves Heather from Silent Hill:

Throughout her story, we come to root for Heather. She's not perfect; she has flaws, from her short temper to the freckles on her face. She stands as my most favorite video game character of all time (just take a look at my icon!). And here at Girl in the Machine, game developers hand us so much to be negative about, and it feels wonderful to celebrate the positive aspects of women in games.

Kotetsu gives favorable reviews to two recent anime movies, Paprika and Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo. Regarding the former, she writes:

One thing that I love about Paprika, however, is the heroine....Like in all of Kon's movies, a woman takes center stage. Sure, there are lots of male characters, and sure, they're important - but they're only important in the sense that they interact with and support the heroine. It's almost the complete opposite of most Hollywood (and Japanese) movies.

Lyle, at Crocodile Caucus lets us know about an interesting possibility on the upcoming season of Supernatural:

Unfortunately, one thing that’s always kept me from fully getting into Supernatural is the show’s WiR-ness......Now, an interview with series creator Eric Kripke gets me excited about Supernatural for the first time. There’s no money quote, but, at the least Kripke shows an awareness of the problem and seems like he’s looking to correct the course.

Lastly, I'm apparently not the only one that adored Spider-man, Fairytales #1. Pervyficgirl writes:

I love this comic. Possibly I read it six times. Possibly I will be sharing with my eight year old niece. Something I dearly wish I could do in good conscience with Black Canary or current Wonder Woman.

Also, it is implied that Peter is going to make his Spider-costume out of the remains of MJ's red hood. Awwwwww. I love you, Peter Parker. You wear your strong woman's clothes.

"It's just so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf... what's the point of living... if you don't have a dick?"

The latest version of the Smurfette Syndrome is brought to us by the new Transformers movie. Ragnell eloquently rants:

Why is being a girl so fucking special? Why is it that every other fucking robot has a male fucking voice and no one questions why they have gender coding but the fucking second you bring in a female voice and god forbid you put it in a feminine color you have to suddenly explain why everyone has gender?

Amen!



And the next time someone tries to argue that it's all because girls don't like action and explosions and the like, feel free to spit out the stats from a recent study that says otherwise. Mighty Ponygirl (from Feminist Gamers) summarizes:

While the numbers still show that boys play more videogames than girls, the gap is not as wide as people would like to believe: while 2/3 of boys reported playing a violent video game at least once a week, so did a full 1/3 of girls interviewed. This means that even the remaining 2/3 of girls who play videogames may still play violent videogames, just not as often as once a week.

On a more "high-brow" note, Eleanor at Ambling Along an Aqueduct has some thoughts on why there don't seem to be as many female SF writers:

I think there is a double prejudice operating here. One is a prejudice against the life sciences as opposed to physics and engineering.....

The other, of course being that it can't really be "hard" SciFi if it was written by a woman. (Women being soft and gooey and all, I guess.)


Charleanders at She's Such a Geek! asks us to help Free Julie Delpy!. She also asks:

Why does Steven Spielberg get to make dozens of increasingly braindead films, when Julie Delpy doesn’t get her shot?

Good question!



On a similar note, while the statistics are not about Science Fiction/Fantasy in particular, gillpolack points us to some interesting, but depressing, stats on gender in movies:

72% of speaking character parts are male;
83.5% of crowd scenes are male;
83% of narrators are male.

Ouch. I can't imagine the stats are better when one looks at just scifi/fantasy.

(note: the link to See Jane's research seems to be broken. Their site is currently being reworked, and that may be why. I'll try fix the link when/if I can.)


At Feminist SF - The Blog! lizzard let's us know that

Juno Books’s Paula Guran is looking for stories for Warrior Women [a reprint anthology]...Amazons to warrior princesses to space cadets—strong women who meet the challenge of fighting the good fight.

If you have any suggestions - send them in!


I'll admit that I don't know much about LiveJournal, and many of the postings about the recent controversy over LJ banning various fandoms and fanfiction journals has left me more confused than enlightened. However, Mastor Erestor has some strong words to say on the subject:

"Obscenity" is the perfect tool to weed out everything that doesn't fit in a nice, clean, straight, male-dominated and preferably white world.

(sigh) Isn't that always the case.


Ahh! Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!

Bellatrys, at Nothing New Under the Sun, takes one for the team and reviews the first two Gor books. Her reason?

After about the fifth or sixth reiteration of the (usually-male-made) claim that "the first ones weren't so bad, the misogyny and male dominance stuff didn't come in till later," I resolved, in my Chaotic way, to challenge this dogma and put it to the test.

What she finds is scary in so many ways.


While I'm sure everyone knows by now just why the lamentable Gor series is getting more dicsussion lately, it should also be noted that, as J. E. Remy (Die Wachen) points out, apparently

Dark Horse feels it not only appropriate to support the subjugation and victimization of women by republishing this long out-of-print work, but to market it to “all age groups.”

(emphasis mine)

Remy's posts critiquing Dark Horse's decision also include all kinds of contact information in case you want to write letters to the parties involved.



Because I cannot end this on a bad note, I leave you with 1) Space Invaders Against Sexism!

(Yes, it's from kotaku - but it's space invaders against sexism! - and it's via Jade Reporting. I think......It's been a long couple of days.)

And 2) a reminder that Ragnell is still looking for someone to host the 17th carnival.

That's all folks, thanks for coming!

Coolness - and Not So Coolness

While going through the latest Jade Reporting post, I learned about an online clan for XBox that consists of kids ages 8 to 16, chaperoned by an adult. The clan, GR8, is all sorts of cool, giving kids reasons to finish their homework and stay away from gangs and the presence of adults helps the kids learn to be good sports and even pick up school related knowledge (like negative numbers) that would likely have taken them much longer to figure out on their own.

Unfortunately, the articles are all about the fact that various groups of assholes will often come and harrass the kids and parents (often - always? - moms) with all kinds of graphic language - and then report the parent as an abuser when they kick the offending parties out of the room.

Hide Your Little Yellow Thingies!

Oh dear god.



LOL

The internet is a lovely place, is it not?




hat tip to imaginary_guilt

via jade reporting

Apologies Once Again

...for the lack of posts.

I had an out of town wedding to go to and I got sidetracked typing up a series of posts that will likely never see the light of day because my ideas are all jumbled and incomprehensible.

Mostly, though, it turns out that Kingdom Hearts II is just as addicting as the original.

MUST. GET. OWN. PLAYSTATION.

grad school applications? what grad school applications? I have to go help Pooh get his memory back!

An Apology to All Female Gamers

I'm afraid I managed to reinforce some of the not so nice stereotypes about girls and games over the last few nights.

I didn't mean to, I swear!

See, here's how it happened:

YALSA came up with the idea to start a new annual teen event called Teen Tech Week and being a YA librarian and all (yeah, yeah, I'm technically just a "library assistant") it was my job to come up with stuff for the teens to do. Besides, I thought it was a pretty cool idea anyway.

However, since I was never cool even when I was a teenager, and since I'm still getting to know the teens from my area, I put out a survey asking them to rate some ideas that I had...well, ok, some ideas I got from YALSA's wiki and site.

The overwhelming winner was...well, it was actually a movie night, but we couldn't get the license in time, so we opted for a Teen Game Night, which came in a pretty strong second. So, I borrowed my brother's Playstation, hauled my teeny tiny TV up the mountain, ordered some pizza, and told the the kids they were welcome to bring any of their own games and game systems. Several brought in games and handhelds, and we left the computers on and provided board games as well, so there was plenty for everyone to do. One of the teens actually brought in a big huge TV*, so we were able to set up another station with yet another kid's XBox.

Overall it was a HUGE success. I saw lots of faces I had yet to see ever in my entire four months working there and I know several of the kids came in because their friends told them about it. Dude, I'm getting word of mouth advertising!

However, I haven't played anything other than puzzle games on my computer for, well, several years. Not since my brother and I shared an apartment and a Playstation, I'm ashamed to say. (A different brother and Playsation.) So...I sucked. Plus, I was only half paying attention to the game (for the whole two minutes I played any) because it was my job to keep an eye on things.

It also didn't help that I was all nostalgic about all the old games, or that I had to keep asking "so how do we do this?", or that I just tried laughing my miserable failure off as if it were a joke.

Grrrr...

Well, I may be able to keep the Playstation for a while, so I might see about practising some so I am less of an embarrassment to my gender the next time around.

Of course, that probably means I should pick something up besides Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2....


*yeah, so, there's lots of obvious potential problems with letting them do this, but the kid who brought the TV in is 17 and is leaving for Boot Camp and then Iraq in less than 6 months, so I kinda figured he was old enough to make his own decisions about such things. And all the other kids had carrying cases for their gear and games, so it was quite obvious that they do this often, and that their parents know they do.