One of the reasons I dislike writing about gender -- even when I think my gender might provide useful perspective -- is that someone will always use it as an excuse to point out self-victimization. You cannot make any observation about gender without someone demanding that the perfect reverse be also true, and you're a misogynist/misandrist if not. According to commenters I am either of these at any given time.
When I first started writing professionally, having a gender-neutral name as I do, I wouldn't even disclose that I was female unless asked directly, not just because I feared backlash, but because I didn't want to make it relevant. I think I've done only a handful of articles that are specifically oriented around a female perspective, and usually only when asked directly by an editor -- nonetheless, I think the most vocal commentary I receive about my work has to do with whether I am sexist. That, or the fact that I can't even bring it up without being accused of 'using' it for something. To hear forumgoers and commenters say it, when I am not setting back the women's movement a hundred years, I am emasculating and victimizing men.
I'm bummed that many commenters on Kotaku have distilled my recent feature down to: "I play as a jerk as a man because men are dicks, but I have a deeper experience when I'm a woman." That's not it at all -- whenever I play video games that let me create my own character, I develop a "concept" of what kind of person I want to play that is gender-independent; usually this concept has nothing to do with who I am, but more to do with what kind of character I think makes for an interesting story, something I said plainly in the article.
I liked the concept of an aloof, manipulative person as the Persona 3 protagonist. This was easy to execute when I played as a male, but hard to execute when I played as a female -- because I am a female, and only then did I notice how much social ideas about how women should behave were weighing on me. If I'd played the game as a woman first, I might have had the same revelations regarding what I unconsciously think men should "be like", and then it'd be a different article to a similar end.
That I played as a jerk the first time had nothing to do with the fact the original protagonist is male (as far as I'm consciously aware). What I'm saying here is I didn't think about gender at all, until this second playthrough of the game -- where only the gender had been changed, for the most part -- made me realize my idea of the kind of character I wanted to play was coming into conflict with preconceptions of how women are taught they should act, things I would have never expected would influence me.
This seemed to be obvious to most of the commenters -- many players, their own gender aside, shared experiences of feeling more sympathetic toward Yukari's jealous insecurities when they played as a woman, or feeling more annoyed or threatened by Junpei's questioning their authority (two stand-out differences for me as well).
It was an article about how a player's reactions to characters and situations can change based on your character's gender, and how those are being informed by social lessons you may have been unconsciously taught. I think that's an interesting self-exploration experience that only video games can offer, so I shared it. Many commenters pointed this out, but anyone is making it into "men are this and women are that, huh?" is disappointing, so I figured I'd be absolutely clear.
Most of the comments in the thread are on point, but I didn't want to see the conversation derailed into misandry complaints without stating my firm objection.
30 comments:
You have seemed to attracted a hard core negative fandom at this point. Congratulations?
I do think the art style that they used really did have an impact. The MShe seems to just be more vibrant than the MC. And her answers do have more energy it feels like. So i think they wanted to produce a character that was very different from the 1st protagonist as could be given that you and gender was just one way. I feel that the revamped SLs are much better I just wish they would have kept the online game link and redid that. That would have been really interesting to see.
But hey we at least get to see the teacher Kenji's hot for...
I accept your congratulations heartily, because I take the fact that people are expending such energy as a sign that I am successful.
Oh! It hadn't occurred to me that was the same teacher until now -- good catch!
I would love to pick the dev's brains and ask why, if we're getting all new social link stories anyway, why, say, they give me rio instead of letting me meet kaz from the position of a woman (I think the answer would be men don't coach girls' sports, but the boy got yuko, so..)
also -- and this is odd -- but I would have liked implied female-female romance (saori!!). I don't know why, since I would never have expected that option with the male MC.
actually, I know why -- it's because lots of japanese media use the 'female friends with sexual tension' trope constantly (whereas kanji even demonstrating gray-area 'leanings' in P4 was hugely controversial). both editions of p3 have that girl in the hall who's obviously in love with mitsuru...
hell, we have come to expect it from western games, too (via mass effect where you can be a lesbian but not gay). probably a relic of the assumption that the consumer will be a male for whom girls together are 'hot' but guys together are 'creepy'. but i digress.
I think the people taking offense sound like the same people who were screaming about how racist Sonia Sotomayor must be because she had said she brings experience as a latina woman that a white male would not have.
Colorblindness/genderblindness has never been egalitarian. Pretending that there is no difference in the cultural variables that are brought to bear on men or women or whites and non-whites is pointless. It's almost always just a way for white men to angrily demand that everyone else should be white men too.
Accentuate the positive, anthrax the negative.
Don't you go drinking with RPS? In that case you have nothing to worry about.
You will not regret this: http://www.pop.is/t98p
twistedinc
Hi,
I haven't played this game, but I just wanted to say that as a lady-gamer who is mildly educated in gender studies I really appreciate your writing for a gaming audience about gender issues, especially since you get so much flack for it. Gamers have been the most sexist and blind to their own bigotry of any people I have met....just being able to discuss gender issues is a fantastic leap in the right direction. Thank you, and keep up the good work.
-SD
To be fair to Bioware, you can be gay in Dragon Age.
No offense, Leigh, but I really think you should let such negative criticism roll off your back and not pay attention to it.
You got plenty of positive criticism and comments on the Kotaku article, don't let a few bad apples ruin the bunch.
I agree with a lot of your gender-related-criticism observations, especially as they're similar to the race-related ones. There seems to be a prevailing sense of "If you can't fix it yourself, you shouldn't bring it up" around these issues in video game studies.
I presented at a conference on the race debate over RE5 early this year, comparing it to the race debate over a genre-similar 19th century novel, trying to demonstrate the racial imagery as literature's equivalent of "we didn't know better yet." It didn't go over well, as most of my audience wanted to know how I was going to fix it :-/
It's a shame you had to deal with backlash from that post. I thought it was interesting and honest, and I found it both entertaining (as a gamer) and useful (as a designer). Don't let the nay-sayers get you down. Keep up the great work!
I've always respected people too much to be like 'wow you're dumb and i don't care what your response is'.
but maybe i should just stop addressing criticism and be a little more aloof ;)
There's disagreeing with someone then there's just being a trolling d-bag. I disagree with your opinions often, but I always respect them because they're well thought out and well written. In fact I'd say that's probably the main reason I have SVGL in my bookmarks bar. If I wanted to hang out with people that all thought the same way, and blindly lash out at anyone that disagrees with them, I'd join the Tea Party. (sorry for the cheap shot, btu they drive me nuts)
A difference of opinion should make you think more about why you think and feel the things you do and *gasp* maybe actually to change your mind. Regrettably, this is not often the case. The common practice now is to argue and debate by attacking the source instead of strengthening their own side. If one thing in your arguement is wrong or slightly paradoxical, then your whole stance is invalid. Which is absolutely ludicrous.
Unfortunately, John Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory turns out to be true all too often.
Two non-sequiters - your love of Persona3 and has convinced me to start saving up for a PSP. Second, men can coach girls teams. My cousin in law coaches 4th grade girls' basketball and another coaches women's volleyball in college.
I do love your take in gender, sexuality, racism, violence, and the other cultural topics. I don't necessarily agree with you all the time, but what you write do offer the sort of perspectives that some of us would otherwise missed.
The downside of course, is that as a result, lazy trolls just far out number the sensible, negative OR positive replies, on the basis that it takes more efforts to make thoughtful, well articulated replies that people cared enough to answer.
I don't comment on yours, or quite a few other people's blog entries solely because I felt like I should either write something equally thoughtful and intelligent, or just lurk. As much I could've done the "+1" reply, it's almost insulting to insightful articles IMO. So I don't really say much. Certainly made even worse by the fact that I'm acutely aware of how much of a non-native speaker I am.
This is a very interesting view, the kind that you wouldn't normally reflect upon but that kind of seems obvious when it's layed out in front of you.
I think it's an accepted idea that you have less inhibitions when disguised or pretending you're someone else. The more remote the character you play is from your image, the more differently you would (/feel you could) behave.
So when incarnating a character, it does make complete sense to me that people would play as something quite different.
It's called the "opposite" sex after all...
Pearls before swine; you can't take the comments on Kotaku seriously. They tried a few things to keep it from sliding into the toilet, but ultimately the increased pageviews of "let anybody comment" were too enticing to give up. Even outright trolls don't get the banhammer unless they say something truly vile.
No matter who you are or what you believe, there are places you can go where everybody will hate you and criticize you.
I think I'd only supplement 'The Anti-Fanboy's' commentary on your post. He was pretty concise and mostly in tandem with anything I'd personally comment with msyelf (granted I haven't played the Persona games so I can't comment in-depth).
Just as something snide to your more pointless detractors however. I'll simply state that reckless idealism is far more destructive than even the most overt 'ist' floating around. I'd much rather be labeled a misogynist in these times (and I have mind you) than the opposite, which ISN'T misandry as most people will quickly assert (at least not in this context). It's that oversimplified idealism I mentioned above.
I'm not a fan of when people start talking of equality when it's devoid of realism as well.
Not really on-topic, but is "Leigh" really gender-neutral, as in, were people ever unsure about your gender? I'd be unsure with a "Lee", but with "Leigh", my mind goes straight to female without stopping to consider there's an alternative. (Even though I take it there is one.)
You know, I just noticed that over half of your first name is silent. What a waste of your time to have to write all those unnecessary letters. ;)
Dave -- it's a boy's name in England, yeah. For the first two years I couldn't really write anything outside here without "this was written by a girl!!!" appearing in the comments.
"Leigh Alexander is a girl?!" was a small community meme on Destructoid for a while while I was blogging there.
And I know re: the three silent letters, right? Thanks, mom.
Just wanted to say that I am doing the Giantbomb P4 endurance run at the moment, and I'm not sure there is anything gray area about the Bad Bad Bathhouse. Yes, Chie, there is "something kinda odd" about the dude parading around a demon-infested TV world sauna in his underwear with (for reasons I cannot identify) the posture of an ape and the lisp of a thousand poofters.
I honestly can't tell whether the whole thing is meant to be an in-joke or if the devs actually thought these were subtle little hints they were dropping.
@Dave: My mother's name is "Lee!" Screw you!
It seemed like most of those guys crying misandry had pretty big woman shaped chips on their shoulders. So their reactions were probably of the "when you are a hammer everything looks like a nail" rather than being based on a reasonable reading of the piece.
Pro-tip: using the word "misandry" generally means you are at least a little crazy. Its in the DSM IV.
Didn't mean to call anyone here crazy. What I meant was that if you accuse someone of misandry...etc.
Unfortunately, with topics like gender, there are always going to be people who misunderstand you because they are not receptive to the discussion in the first place. I've found that the gamer community is especially defensive with these issues, even in situations where they have no reason to be. I hope that doesn't discourage you from writing about it in the future, because I really enjoy your take on things.
There are a lot of really good, thoughtful comments on your Kotaku article, many more than typically accompany the less controversial topics. While some people may not want their hobby tainted by these serious considerations, others are eager for more of this type of reflection and dialog. I'm definitely in the latter category, so please keep it up!
Brendan -- the midnight channel thing represents a person's own fears about themselves, so the offensive and exaggerated stereotypes you see in the bathhouse make sense, because they represent kanji's fears and ignorance about what certain parts of himself might "mean", or how he is afraid of being viewed.
I read feminism blogs, and this kind of thing tends to attract both actual trolls and the "so clueless they might as well be trolls" in great numbers...
Just to confirm now that I'm finally there, you do "spend time alone" with Elizabeth in your room as the female MC.
A little late, since I just came up for air after a long workweek(end) to catch up on last week's discussions, but it was exciting to find that you were writing about what has been consuming me personally as a gamer for the last couple of weeks, a topic which I actually wrote on briefly last week as well.
http://www.activegamingmedia.com/media-center/playing-with-gender-roles
(Sorry, not trying to plug my material, it just happened to be a bit too relevant, I think).
I anticipated the usual "palette swap" and what a discovered was an experience that felt entirely new to me as a gamer, thanks to P3P.
While well-aware of the need for more games that provide more diverse avenues for exploring gender and gender roles, this is the first game that really brought the point home.
I'm enjoying the game more than I've enjoyed just about any title in the last few years, but I'm suddenly feeling keenly aware as to what most of the female gaming audience has been having to put up with for the past few... decades.
Ok, so I don't know you aside from your writing but I have noticed one thing about games journalism in general: you can't escape who you are for long.
You find that people take issue with your gender when you use it as a key point in your writing. But most games journalists or bloggers have trouble separating themselves from their gaming preferences, their backgrounds, the fact that they're writing to a particular audience, what other people have written about previously, the collective expectation for a game, etc, etc.
Many writers just carry on as normal and try not to confront the issue but I say CONFRONT! Your writing from the female perspective is one of the things I damn well WANT to hear from you! I like perspective, I prefer perspective, whether that's reading someone who hates a particular kind of game reviewing it anyway or someone who had a childhood tradgedy that this game reminded them of, or they grew up gaming or they've never gamed before or they're colour-blind, deaf, one-armed or whatever! The people who embrace their perspective but don't let it rule them, like you do (otherwise there wouldn't be this refective) are more than sheep and gaming needs individuals, not wool-spouting bores.
Of course you're going to get dissent from certain idiots on the internet. Mainly I'd say that it's reinforced knee-jerking, something they feel they're somehow expected to do from the first point they realise the perspective you're coming from. Most people with braincells that actually touch together inside their head can get past that thought to the underlying issue pretty quickly and frankly I don't know why you'd give a toss about the others, bottom-feeding idiots that they are.
'scuse me, it's Monday morning and I literally haven't had a coffee yet.
It's somewhat amusing that you could be accused of misandry. Personally, I find your writing on gender to be particularly informative because it doesn't set off any misandrist alarm bells. Being able to read about gender issues in video games from a woman's perspective that isn't horribly dismissive is refreshing.
As for the topic at hand, I find it easier to roleplay a personality that is radically different from my own if I'm playing a woman. That extra degree of separation is liberating and, very occasionally, enlightening.
When Mass Effect 2 came out, I made an offhand remark in a discussion forum that I like to play through first as the 'good guy' male Shepard, and then go back and play the renegade role with the female Shepard to get the other flavor of story.
Why? Because Jennifer Hale is an awesome voice actress, and I love the way she puts her spin on Queen Bitch Shepard, whereas I find Mark Meer's Rogue Bastard Shepard to be somewhat less entertaining.
But nooooo. According to the sh*tstorm that followed, I was a terrible, misogynistic basement dweller, among other, nastier qualities.
It was really quite alarming how large the vein of vitriol I tapped turned out to be. It completely swamped any actual discussion I wanted to participate it.
I don't know what can really be done about it, other than to call people on their myopia whenever it comes up, tiresome that it may be.
You know, personally I think it's just easier for people to be evil when there's more of a disconnect between them and the character, and gender can be a big one.
Most of the guys I know who play games as women also play them as murderous psychopaths. Me, I like to play as a hero, and also as a man. I think it marks a difference in how we identify with the avatar, mine is me, he's the hero I wish I was, theirs is the person they're playing as, there's a subtle difference.
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