Sam Roberts
Sam Roberts is the ethics officer for Reaxxion. Think we're doing something wrong? Want to chat? You can follow him on twitter, or email him from our ethics policy page.
Earlier this week, noted feminist and gaming opponent Anita Sarkeesian, of the 300 million dollar Intel money, published a list of “Eight Things Developers Can Do To Make Games Less Shitty For Women.” (As an aside, what is it with feminists and swearing? Is it some attempt to fight against stereotypes of being “ladylike”?) While feminist whining about video games is nothing new, this is, to my knowledge, their first attempt at a list of demands for the game industry. Thus even though these are arguments we’ve all seen before, it’s worth going through them and responding to each in turn, and giving them the due consideration that these ideas and their proponents deserve. I’ve bolded each demand below, along with my response.
1. Avoid the Smurfette principle (don’t have just one female character in an ensemble cast, let alone one whose personality is more or less “girl” or “woman.”)
My response: No.
2. “Lingerie is not armor” (Dress female characters as something other than sex objects.)
My response: No.
3. Have female characters of various body types
My response: No.
4. Don’t over-emphasize female characters’ rear ends, not any more than you would the average male character’s
My response: No.
5. Include more female characters of color.
My response: No.
6. Animate female characters to move the way normal women, soldiers or athletes would move.
My response: No.
7. Record female character voiceover so that pain sounds painful, not orgasmic.
My response: What the hell are you talking about? What sort of weird sicko says, “I want the voiceovers in my game to sound painful! I won’t be satisfied until those women really sound like they’re having their intestines torn out by a tiger”? Get help, woman.
I don’t have a picture for this, and I don’t really want to think about it too much. Let’s all look at this picture of a cat with bread around its face instead.
8. Include female enemies, but don’t sexualize those enemies.
My response: No.
These responses may seem a little brief, and perhaps juvenile. I maintain, however, that “no” is the only way to answer these demands. The temptation is always to say that Ms. Sarkeesian misrepresents the gaming industry, that there are actually plenty of female-friendly games, or that characters like the ones above are “strong women”, whom feminists should love. This is the wrong answer. By making this argument, you’re implicitly agreeing with Sarkeesian and her like that games need to be feminist-friendly; you’re just disagreeing on how feminist-friendly they are right now. And once you’ve agreed with her there, you’ve given her the power to dictate what is and isn’t allowed. After all, who’s going to know better about what games are SJW-friendly—you, or a women’s studies major?
The only response is this: If you don’t like games with big-boobed girls, don’t play them. Even granting Ms. Sarkeesian’s arguments, there is no need for gaming to be “less shitty” to women, any more than there is a need for Lifetime original movies or romance novels to be “less shitty” to men. There are many things in this world that don’t appeal to any given person. But adults recognize that not everything is meant for them. Men don’t barge into the local girl’s night out and angrily demand that women stop insulting their husbands and boyfriends. No man has started a petition against 50 Shades of Grey, and said that its portrayal of a billionaire hunk with an S&M fetish is an unrealistic picture of modern masculinity.
Ms. Sarkeesian, you do not get to tell us how to have fun, and you do not get to tell game developers how to earn their living. And if it upsets you that much that games don’t have more women screaming in realistic pain, I’d suggest taking some of that grant and Kickstarter money and spending it on a good psychotherapist.
Read Next: Why As A Black Man I Prefer White Women In My Games
