The question I have investigated about the keyword "Gender" is: What is the relationship between violence and hostility against women within video game culture and the history of misogynistic character design?
For my final project, I chose to present my research in the form of a zine (learn more about zines here!) The zine is titled To VC or Not to VC, which is a play on the famous line from Shakespear's Hamlet: “to be or not to be.” It has a wordcount of ~800, and is made up of various materials such as paper, glue, stickers, markers, paint, as well as cut-outs from 2 magazines: Anatomy Essentials by Future plc, and The Nib Issue 15, which is a social, political, and scientific comic collective by various artists. Although creating a traditional zine rather than a digital one was challenging and tedious, I was confident that the result would be visually complex and effectively present itself as both an informational and artistic piece. Additionally, using the form of a zine to present my research is also relevant to my chosen keyword, “gender” (learn more about my keyword here). In the 80’s and 90’s, zines such as Shocking Pink, Bikini Kill, and Doris were published by feminist movement groups to spread information that was not present in the news and media. Making zines is something I have experience with; I enjoy the challenging art form, and I think it was important to display and pay homage to the relationship it has with the history of gender, feminism, and misogyny.
A challenge I faced when completing this assignment was organizing all the information I had learnt from my sources and putting it into the zine without it becoming too text heavy. As it turns out, there has been an abundance of scholarly articles published about the history of misogyny in video game culture. I knew that in planning out my zine I wanted there to be a full, vertical spread in the middle of the zine, similar to the notorious centerfold. At first, it was going to be a collage of cut-outs from the anatomy magazine (which was full of sketches of women’s bodies, drawn by a man of course), but in the process I ended up switching to making a timeline of the first influential fighting games of the early 90’s. These games played a big part in the way the video game industry views women today. What started as “submissive and pure” depictions evolved into “sexual and dominative”, both of which are still present in video games today (Tompkins & Martins, 2021). The narrative that has been written for women in video games over the years has always influenced how men view women, as well as how they view themselves. This topic of women and feminine presenting people’s perception of themselves being manipulated by video game character design is something I did not touch on as much as I wanted to in my zine. Research shows that there are psychological impacts due to oversexualized character design and objectification. Not only do women and feminine presenting people experience a large sense of objectification due to the use of oversaturated tropes such as “damsel in distress”, having a “feisty” attitude, but also experience a lack of body satisfaction (Skowronski, et al., 2020). Stereotypes and standards have been historically engrained into every gamer’s mind. Women and feminine presenting people face horrible amounts of body shaming, hypocrisy, derogatory comments and attacks due to their involvement in gaming as a career and/or as a hobby. Video game design now only allows and invites, but it promotes these behaviours. Unfortunately, due to my focus on misogynistic practices in design, cultural influences like #Gamergate, and the size of my zine, I was unable to incorporate these important pieces of information.
Overall, I believe my project was successful because I learnt so much about my research question and that video game character design does in fact have a tremendous impact on misogyny within its culture. In my project, I wrote, “because it has always been highly profitable for games to market women as sexual objects, the perception many men have of women online is skewed, leading to misogyny being very prevalent in video game culture”. I think that this statement provides a core understanding of the “why” of my topic, and why it is very important to discuss as a society.
For the final part of my project, I decided to upload it to my blog in two ways. First, as a downloadable and printable pdf. This allows for people to print it double sided, fold each page, and have their own physical copy of the zine. Second, as an online readable pdf where the pages are in order of text and not of a booklet. The reason for this is that as an art student I have learnt that if there’s anything people love more than digital art, it’s viewing traditional art online. Although I have no aversion towards digital art (I would love to learn one day), there is a sense of authenticity and intimacy to the traditional materials being displayed virtually. Regardless, I wanted to make the zine accessible to everyone, especially the online community where it can be best accessed by people who play video games.
I am very proud of the way this project turned out. I am confident that my design and visualization skills have been evolving, which I have been able to prove in my work. I am able to see a change in the way I perform research and analysis of information from last year which I think is important for me to recognize as a student! The course has taught me many valuable skills such as citing and topic modeling (that I am sure would have made taking CTS2010 a bit easier), and I am eager to improve them as I continue my studies.
Works Cited
Chess, Shira, and Shaw, Adrienne. “A Conspiracy of Fishes,…”. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59:1, 208-220, 11 March 2015, https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2014.999917. Accessed 2 Dec 2023.
Feminist Frequency. Feminist Frequency, 2023, https://feministfrequency.com/. Accessed 2 Dec 2023.
“gender, 3.b”. Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, September 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2250688057. Accessed 3 Nov 2023.
Juul, Jesper. Half-Real. Mit Press, 2011.
McCullough, Keiko M, et al. “Female Video Game Players and the Protective Effect of Feminist Identity Against Internalized Misogyny” Sex Roles, vol. 82, 3 June 2019, pp. 266–276, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01055-7. Accessed 3 Nov 2023
Polianskaya, Alina. “Are video games inherently sexist? Designers and game makers discuss.” Design Week, 20 Feb 2019, https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/18-24-february-2019/are-video-games-inherently-sexist-designers-and-game-makers-share-their-views/. Accessed 3 Nov 2023.
Şengün, Sercan, et al. “Contours of virtual enfreakment in fighting game characters” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 180, 22 April 2022, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121707. Accessed 6 Nov 2023.
Skowronski, Marika, et al. “The effects of sexualized video game characters and character personalization on women's self-objectification and body satisfaction” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 92, 24 November 2020, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104051. Accessed 3 Nov 2023
Stockton, Kathryn Bond. “Gender Has a History and It’s More Recent Than You May Realize” The MIT Press Reader, 8 June 2022, https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/gender-has-a-history-and-its-more-recent-than-you-may-realize/. Accessed 6 Nov 2023.
Stuart, Keith. “Kapow! The history of fighting games”. The Guardian, 1 June 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/jun/01/kapow-the-history-of-fighting-games. Accessed 28 Nov 2023.
Tompkins, Jessica E., and Martins, Nicole. “Masculine Pleasures as Normalized Practices: Character Design in the Video Game Industry” Sage Journals, vol. 17, no. 3, 28 July 2021, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120211034760. Accessed 5 Nov 2023.
“Women Gaming Study” Reach 3 Insights, 12 May 2021, https://www.reach3insights.com/women-gaming-study. Accessed 2 Dec 2023.