This was supposed to be a rant on a recent NY Times article called To Appeal to Women, Too, Gadgets Go Beyond ‘Cute’ and ‘Pink’ (feel free to bingo it in my stead), but I got to reading a Gizmodo article called NY Times: Smaller, Easier to Use Gadgets Are Made for Women and was distinctly bothered by it.

I was heartened by the unabashed use of “sexist” to describe the NYT article, and the fairly good breakdown of why the stereotypes are insulting and wrong. But three things that showed up soured my reading of the article, to the point where it sticks as a negative in my memory rather than a positive. Three things in particular got me: the accompanying picture and two of the “jokes” that Matt Buchanan, the author of the article, cracked.

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Inspired by this post at Feminist Gamers and this post on The IRIS Network forums, I decided to take an old post of mine and turn it into a bingo scorecard.

Basically the rules are that when you see a media article, blog post, or anything else talking about women in relation to a geeky hobby (gaming, technology, science, etc) you pull out this scorecard and mark down which points the article touches on. If you get three in a row (diagonal counts), you win! If you get blackout, you win even more!

What do you win? Well, the satisfaction of knowing that you have made fun of yet another stupid article on women geeks. You can also link your scorecard (and any post that you made in relation to the bingo — using the scorecard isn’t mandatory, but I think it’s a cute visual) on this thread and, if you do a post, I might just highlight it here or on TIN’s forums.

Well, it’s official, Kotaku blogger Crecente has done his homework and decided that women just don’t blog about video games! This, of course, on the wake of Kotaku link blogging Guilded Lily’s post on covers she wants to see without giving any sort of nod to the meme that inspired it, or the other female video game bloggers who participated. Guilded Lily was not one of the women video game bloggers mentioned, by the way.

Of course, when Kotaku regularly inserts sexist turns of phrase into their posts, especially in ones that have little or nothing to do with gender, I am not exactly at a loss for an explanation as to why they would overlook resources like Women Gamers (the first hit when you google “women gamers”, just so you know) or Killer Betties. But, I mean, it’s us “gamer chicks” who have the “treat me better because I am a girl gamer attitude” according to one Kotaku commenter.

Let me put it another way. When bloggers like Faith, who put up with a lot of sexist shit being flung at them every time they post, say you’ve gone too far, your chances for getting a woman to blog for you, even if you find them with your severely lacking internet searching skills, is probably pretty low.

You want diversity at Kotaku? You want to add a woman to your staff? Then take down your damn “White Boys Only” sign and, at the very least, stop shoving your contempt for women down our throats in any post that even remotely can relate to women.

We are not your “whores”.

We are not your “bitches”.

And we are not going to sit down and kiss your feet for your half-assed attempts at including us.

I swear I don’t go looking for these kinds of things, they find me all on their own. I went to VoodooPC’s website to check their tech support hours (in the hopes of me getting my laptop back this century…) and I saw the above image.

When you mouse over it you get this lovely text:

Do I even have to do an image and textual analysis of this for everyone to understand what’s wrong with a North American company (recently bought out by HP, mind you) capitalizing on the fetishization of Asian culture in order to sell its product? Okay, then.

Honestly, if I didn’t have so many things to do already I’d be sorely tempted to make a satire of the above ad using Christianity. The laptop as Jesus, anyone?

So, apparently, there is maybe, sort of, perhaps a possibility that Halo 3 will get a female voice for its multiplayer mode. I’m not a fan of Halo 3, so the decision doesn’t exactly affect me. Though back in the day when I had this mythical thing called “time” I was disappointed that the FPS games I played either had no female characters or inappropriately sexualized their female player characters, so it would be nice to see an FPS giving a nod to the women playing even if I’m not one of them.

However, despite assurances from Bungie’s website that the voice “won’t be comical, stereotypical or insulting – we’ll pick a great, strong female actress who can pull off bloodcurdling death cries and rattles,” (which, if true, would be great; the whole orgasmic death thing creeps me out) I have a hard time taking someone seriously who didn’t even bother to use the word “woman” when addressing and talking about the female gamers.

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According to a BBC News article, Games industry is ‘failing women’, girls don’t want girly games about makeup, they want girly games about relationships and chatting. Or something.

The chief operating officer for EA’s worldwide studios, David Gardner, had this to say on the matter:

They don’t want ‘pink games’. Thy are not trying to play girly games where Paris Hilton and Britney Spears go shopping and put make-up on.

[…]

The Sims is really a game about relationships - and that’s what girls want - they want relationships, they want to be able to chat.

Really, I’m thrilled that the video game industry is finally realizing that it has a vast, untapped market. But, picking and choosing stereotypes instead of realizing that women and girls, like men and boys, are people with varied tastes and preferences really isn’t the way to do it.

I mean, am I the only one who sees the logical disconnect between saying that girls don’t like “girly” games, and then pulling out the relationships and chatting stereotypes as the reason why many women play The Sims?

Could it, perhaps, be that the afforementioned “girly” games are stupid and badly made, while The Sims has a solid background and has had lots of thought put into it? Or perhaps that The Sims affords you a chance to play God, not only by controlling your sims, but also by downloading and even creating new content. There’s even the possibility that it attracts women because it’s not specifically marketed against us — if any objectification goes on, it’s completely player generated, rather than company generated.

I can see people playing it because they like forming (and breaking) relationships. That has been one of the fun aspects for me, too (as is amassing wealth, turning my characters into vampires, having my sims have more sex than I do, downloading cool stuff, etc). That Gardner would bring up “chatting” as a reason more women play The Sims, though, tells me that not only does he not know his company’s product very well, but he’s relying on stereotypes rather than actual evidence. The Sims is a single player game, the “chatting” that goes on in it is that you can click on a sim, select “chat” and they’ll speak in Simolean. Which is not, by the way, a real language. I hardly see that as qualifying.

Marketing towards women based on stereotypes isn’t working, the “girly” games that are cited as failing are proof of that. So, please, video game companies, stop cribbing off of my Top “Geek Girl”-Friendly Rules! list and start viewing your potential female consumers as a vaired and diverse group of people — you know, how you view your male audeince (save the teenage group, who you seem to think are sex-crazed, misogynistic, annoying and stupid children; while we’re at it, stop that, too).

This time from IGN.com. It’s a month old, but it’s new to me (thanks, Ragnell). I have my “for ‘her’” category, but I’m really starting to feel like I need one specifically for “The Girlfriend List Idiocy” because this is just ridiculous. People rarely tell us “What Men Want” because it’s assumed to be too diverse in the vast majority of subjects, and yet over and over again these “What Women Want” lists crop up. You, out of my geekdom!

Anyway, here’s what I sent via their contact form:

Articles like these are precisely why I avoid your site. I am an avid geek - a gamer, comics fan, and into reading and writing about said geekery. I am exactly what your magazine/site targets, except for that inconvenient aspect of being female.

Women are not some collective Hive Vagina. You can no more recommend good books for us than you can for men — and the only “Books/Games/Whatever for Your Boyfriend” lists I have seen are parodies of the overabundant stereotyical “Girlfriend Lists”.

Listen, I’m sure the list was made and posted with the best intentions. But, please, from one geek to another: please stop. I’m not some mysterious creature to be tamed with your list of books. I — and every other woman, geek or no — am an individual. A human being.

When you publish lists like that, you erase our humanity by assuming that we’re all the same.

Ragnell, the evil sadist who sent me the link in the first place, has posted her reply here. It’s pithy and to the point, and if you want to laugh instead of cry/fume, go read it.

I recently saw a commercial for the Sony Bravia which billed itself as “The World’s First Television for Men and Women.”

At first, I thought they were advertising something like this, but after checking out the web site it turns out that it’s just a marketing campaign for a high-end HDTV.

I’m trying to figure out what the advertisers were thinking this one. I’ve narrowed it down to the following possibilities:

• They noticed that purchasers of HDTVs were disproportionately male, and saw women as an untapped market; however, they were worried that a women-centered ad campaign would lose more male buyers.
• They’re looking to provide the stereotypical man with justifications to his stereotypical partner for the purchasing decision.

Given the blatant sexism of the advertisement, I’m leaning toward the latter.

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Girls, we need to have a talk. Is this a familiar scenario for you? You come home from a long day of work or school and are looking forward to relaxing on the couch to play a few hours of your favorite game. Within seconds, your husband/boyfriend/father/brother swoops in and starts harping in your ear, “Games are for boys, BITCH!” Tired of hearing the same crap in your ear every day? Want to play your games in peace? Better yet, do you dream of sharing your love without getting sexually harassed, talked down, or called male? Well, you came to the right place.

Straight from the mouth of a gamer who happens to be female, I will… well, I certainly won’t be making a stupid, sexist list that derides women as naggers and then tells you how to get them to play games. But I sure as hell will be critiquing one from a writer whose creds is that she’s a “female gamer” — but apparently that doesn’t exempt her from spouting a load of sexist crap.

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I meant to plug this yesterday. Whoops. Anyway, Georgia State University is doing a survey called Daughters of the Revolution: Females Born in the ’70’s & Early ’80’s, Writing, and the Digital Revolution. It’s for American women born between 1970 and 1985. If you qualify, I urge you to go take it. I know I did.

Via Netwoman.

Which Type of Gamer Girl are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Leave it to someone who thinks it’s appropriate to represent “kinds” of female gamers with large-breasted and scantily clad avatars (“girl power”, anyone?) to create a quiz that would tell me I’m a sports gamer. Not just a sports gamer, though, but one who walks around in a cutoff longsleeved tee and panties! Hut-hut, indeed.

Via New Game Plus.

After over two months, I’m finally sitting here typing on my brand new laptop. I’ve been spending the past few days migrating my stuff over from my old laptop and desktop and I’m not quite done yet. Am I happy it’s here? Hell yeah. Do I like it so far? Sure. Would I recommend this company to someone else? Probably not.

The main reason why I don’t think I would recommend this company again is because of the sheer aggravation I went through to get this thing. Another is that you can get a comparable machines for a lower price, although VoodooPC offers some peripherals that Sager does not (including the paint job and tatoo, which I rather like). If this machine turns out to be the best thing since baked bread, however, I may give people a qualified endorsement. But, onto my retelling of the Delay Saga and the first impressions of Rouge (my computer, named after the Sonic Adventure 2 character, of course) when I first got her.

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December tis the season to be consuming. We all love gifts but, more than that, companies love selling them to us. There is likely a gift guide for everyone, their families, and even their pets of choice out there. Enter HUB magazine’s “Holiday Gift Guide” edition.

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Over at New Game Plus, Lake Desire shares her feelings on the disconnect between what she, a woman, wants in a game and what male players think she wants:

Final Fantasy X-2 wasn’t my first disappointment in the series (particularly my first time in Spira), but it was the first time that I felt this game is for someone other than me. I didn’t even have a chance to get excited about a role-playing game with an all female party; I remembered just how “strong” a character Yuna was from the last game. When the screenshots and production art made the forums, and I saw pictures like this (a declaration of the game’s intended audience), I thought they were a joke. A Final Fantasy game about collecting outfits? Although many thought the upcoming game looked cheap and insulting, others seemed to be missing the point. I recall reading articles and forum posts written by male gamers who were excited that more games like FFX-2 and Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball were coming out with things women like, shopping and clothes, so girls can have fun gaming, too. Like they thought the game was for women.

[From Alienating Audiences by Lake Desire]

It’s a whole lot easier to think that having a female character, or dressing up feminine stereotypes in new, more sexist ways are appealing to women than actually taking the time to, you know, think of your female audience as people who would like to be represented equally. Women make up almost half of the gaming audience and yet, despite our growing outrage, we still have to put up with games that objectify and demean us, and people who just don’t get it.

Do you want to get your girlfriend or wife into technology, but you’re afraid she’s too feeble minded to be able to appreciate your magnanimous gift? Have you run out of gift guides to scour, but still need a gift for the girl “geek” in your life? Well, fear not, friend! You’ve come to the right place. This list will give you the skills that you need to decide what pieces of technology are and are not appropriate for the little women in your life!

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So, I ordered myself a Voodoo laptop today. After a frustrating website experience, I decided to write up a series on how my Voodoo weathers the next few years. Seeing as I just ordered it, and therefore cannot write about the machine itself, I decided to make this an introduction/rant about the website.

As soon as I get it (which, given that I’m going to be in Miami for the next two months, better be a month after it arrives), I’m going to write a First Impressions post on it, and then I’ll update things whenever a new problem crops up. Because you know problems are gonna come up.

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First things first:

1. Is everything working for everyone? No weird spacing issues, two content spaces running into each other, etc?
2. Would you prefer the permalink pages to have more space by not having the right link bar there?
3. Please give me suggestions on how the comments should formatted. I’m not really happy with the way they are right now.
4. Don’t be shy in speaking up about any other issues you have with the design; I may not take your suggestion but then again, I just might.

I have to say, creating a WP theme has given me a new insight into divs. And a renewed love for my tabular design style.

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GGA brought my attention to an article called Top Ten Girlfriend-Friendly Games on 1up.com (a site that seems to have a significant female membership). Marginalization in the gaming industry is nothing new to me. I mean, having boobs and a vagina and identifying as female is obviously enough to exclude me from that Good Ol’ Boys Club^TM. If I do venture in, it must only be through a boyfriend (since all good boys and girls are heterosexual) who will introduce me to fluffy games, like Bejeweled and Nintendogs, which are not too hardcore for my weak constitution. Do I sound bitter? Well, after spending most of my twenty-two years seeing mainstream magazines, websites, and other gaming publications catering to guys, and only guys, I think I’ve earned a bit of bitterness. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for me to not have to go to a female-oriented gaming site in order to be included.

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