Women and videogames: blog tasks
Work through the following blog tasks to complete our work on women in videogames and further feminist theory.
Part 1: Background reading on Gamergate
Read this Guardian article on Gamergate 10 years on. Answer the following questions:
1) What was Gamergate?
Gamergate was a large-scale online harassment campaign in 2014, framed by supporters as being about “ethics in games journalism” but widely recognised as a misogynistic attack on women and marginalised people in gaming.
2) What is the recent controversy surrounding narrative design studio Sweet Baby Inc?
Sweet Baby Inc has become the target of a new online harassment campaign accusing the studio of “forcing woke diversity” into games. Online groups have organised boycotts, misinformation and abuse toward the company and its staff, similar in tone to Gamergate.
3) What does the article conclude regarding diversity in videogames?
The article argues that diversity in games is not being “forced,” but reflects the natural broadening of the gaming community. It concludes that the industry must actively support creators who face harassment if it wants games to remain inclusive.
1) What definitions are offered for ‘feminism’ and ‘patriarchy’?
The factsheet defines feminism as the movement for political, social and economic equality for women, and patriarchy as a social system where men hold power and women are structurally disadvantaged.
2) Why did bell hooks publish Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center?
hooks wrote the book because she believed mainstream feminism centred white, middle-class women and ignored the experiences of women of colour and working-class women. She wanted to reposition marginalised women at the centre of feminist theory.
3) What aspects of feminism and oppression are the focus of much of hooks’s work?
Her work focuses on how gender, race, class and sexuality intersect to shape different experiences of oppression, and how feminism must acknowledge these overlapping systems rather than treating women as one uniform group.
4) What is intersectionality and what does hooks argue regarding this?
Intersectionality is the idea that identities such as gender, race and class overlap to create different forms of oppression. hooks argues feminism must recognise these intersections or it will exclude many women’s lived experiences.
5) What did Liesbet van Zoonen conclude about gender roles and the mass media?
Van Zoonen argues the mass media plays a central role in constructing and reinforcing gender roles, shaping what society comes to accept as “masculine” and “feminine.”
6) Van Zoonen sees gender as socially constructed. What does this mean and which theorist does it link to?
It means gender is shaped by culture and media rather than biology. This links closely to Judith Butler’s idea that gender is performative and created through repeated social behaviours.
7) How do feminists view women’s lifestyle magazines in different ways, and which view do you agree with?
Some feminists see them as reinforcing stereotypes and limiting women to traditional roles, while others argue women can actively enjoy and interpret these magazines in their own way. The more balanced view, recognising both influence and agency, is the most convincing.
8) Van Zoonen shows gender ideas change over time. Which theorist agrees things evolve, and do you think gender roles are changing?
This links to theorists like Stuart Hall, who argues representations and meanings shift over time. Gender roles are clearly changing, shown by more varied portrayals of both masculinity and femininity in contemporary media.
9) What are the five aspects van Zoonen suggests are significant in determining media influence?
She highlights the individual, social and cultural factors that shape how audiences interpret media, as well as the importance of gender and power relations within these influences.
10) Which other media theorist can be linked to van Zoonen’s work?
Her ideas connect strongly to Laura Mulvey (the male gaze) and Stuart Hall (representation and ideology).
11) Van Zoonen discusses “transmission models” and women internalising dominant culture. What other theory does this link to?
This links to concepts such as symbolic annihilation and Hall’s idea of dominant ideology shaping audience understanding.
12) How does van Zoonen’s view of power as a “multiplicity of subordination” link to bell hooks?
It mirrors hooks’s intersectionality: power is not simply men vs women but a network of overlapping inequalities shaped by race, class, gender and more.
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