Category: Monthly Articles

In Defense of Domesticity [REPOST from Shrub.com]

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Note: This article was originally written on July 03, 2005 as a Shrub.com Article. In my process of switching all articles over to this blog, I will be reposting old entries. What follows is in its original form without any editing.

Because of some crossed wires, I’m taking this month instead of johnmoon (he’ll be up for August). Since I’m in the middle of moving, I’m going to shamelessly plagiarize my own comment from a thread over at reappropriate. On our blog, I argued for the ability for people to choose what, if any, parts of traditional femininity and masculinity are right for them. Taking the argument to its logical conclusion, everyone should have the right to choose what kind of life is right for them whether it be working a job or taking care of the house and kids.

When I was younger, I was pretty much against anything feminine. My personality, combined with my having a backlash against what was expected of me, caused me to get into a “male-normative” mindset (meaning that I thought that traditionally male things were “normal” and traditionally feminine things were “bad”): I hated makeup, and “girly” clothing like dresses and skirts, and, yes, I looked down on people who aspired to the domestic. It took me a long time to step away from that mindset but it wasn’t until I got a big dose of feminist theory that I really understood why it’s so important to see things such as domestic labour as valuable.

Now, I can understand fighting hard to give people a true choice in what they want to do with their lives. I understand that, right now, domestic labour is de-valued and, in many cases, can make a woman into nothing more than a domestic slave. However, I don’t think the solution is to further degrade that labour but to show society how valuable it is. To show society that “womanly” things are just as good as “manly” things.

The facts are, not everyone wants to aspire to a male-normative life. Some people, women and men, want to raise a family and keep their home functioning properly. And, frankly, that should be seen as a good thing. Homemakers, unlike the stereotype, don’t sit on their asses all day eating bonbons and watching soap operas. They do work: they can clean, they can cook, they can garden, they can decorate, they can be in charge of the finances, they can have time to have hobbies that they enjoy, if there are children around they can take care of them, too. Society is built not only by the breadwinners, but also on the backs of people (historically women) who have kept the less visible parts running smoothly.

These are people who have given all their time to making sure the people around them are healthy, happy, and in good order. These are people who have sacrificed much of themselves in order to benefit their families. Desiring to be a homemaker is, for many people, about loving one’s family above everything and wanting to be the domestic backbone that keeps things going.

Saying that these people have no ambition, degrading the valuable work they do… that’s what’s been done to them for ages. Calling their valuable labour worthless is calling them worthless for wanting to do that labour. And that is an anti-feminist value. To work for equality, we need to see the value in the traditionally feminine and not just try to make everyone into “men”.

Fantasy Women [REPOST from Shrub.com]

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Note: This article was originally written on November 01, 2005 as a Shrub.com Article. In my process of switching all articles over to this blog, I will be reposting old entries. What follows is in its original form without any editing.

While in the midst of writing my Girls and Game Ads series, I found myself going off on a tangent on the depiction of women in the fantasy genre and how it helped lead to the rise of the “girl power” paradigm we find deeply enmeshed in current Western pop-culture. While the whole “chicks in chainmail” deal was already being challenged by fresh authors and ideas by the time I got into fantasy, it remains an important part of the genre’s history. It is this idea that I will be addressing in this article.

My first real introduction to the fantasy genre as a genre in its own right was Ursula K. Leguin’s Earthsea series. While the way she used her female characters never sat right with me, nevertheless I believe it to be significant that my initial contact with the genre was divorced from one of its staple stereotypes. It wasn’t until I got into Dragonlance that I was introduced into the idea of “chicks in chainmail”. There, however, it was the art that emphasised that rather than the authors; Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s portrayal of their female warriors was pretty close to being gender neutral and most definitely didn’t fetishize them into “babes in brass bra bikinis” (to steal from Esther Friesner). Other Dragonlance authors varied in their representation, but even though I eventually quit the series I never felt that they had betrayed me to the stereotype. Indeed, partly because I’m not so much into high fantasy and partly because I tend to unconsciously seek out female authors, I don’t have much in my extensive collection that fits this paradigm.

Nevertheless, simply being immersed in fantasy culture is enough to make one aware of this stereotype. Even if not for the D&D books I briefly owned, or the fantasy genre video games I played, I still would have been aware that the books I chose were still not the “norm” for the growing genre. One of my favourite series, in fact, is a collection of parody stories: Chicks in Chainmail, Did You Say Chicks?!, Chicks ‘N Chained Males, The Chick is in the Mail and the newest one, Turn the Other Chick. These stories helped me to see that the harmful stereotype goes deeper than just the flagship “warrior babe” (fully equipped with scanty armour that wouldn’t protect a fly, let alone a human being) and into every aspect of the traditional genre, from the sexualized warrior women to the meek healing sidekicks. Not long after this, I was shown two other great series (Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness quartet and Patricia C. Wrede’s The Enchanted Forest Chronicles) by my fantasy loving friends that, while not parodies per se, turned the stereotypes on their ears. Though already past the targeted age for Young Adult books, those series appealed to me on a highly personal level and continue to enthral me even now. Good writing, it seems, knows no age boundary.

While the expansion of the fantasy genre and, I would argue, the increasing inclusion of women’s voices, is beginning to erode the vice grip the “chicks in chainmail” paradigm has on the literary genre, it seems that instead of eradicating the stereotype all that is happening is that it is being transferred to other forms of the genre. Even today, you can still see it as a common theme with popular artists such as Luis Royo and the combined talents of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell (a tagline in their footer even proclaims: “Beautiful women and heroic men”). The video game industry uses the model for everything from E3’s “booth babes” to Blizzard’s Night Elves. Hollywood has even picked it up with characters like Buffy (her television counterpart being less of a parody than the original movie), Leeloo from Fifth Element, and a whole host of characters from film adaptations of comics and video games.

Gaming Communities: Real or Imaginary? [REPOST from Shrub.com]

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Note: This article was originally written on May 05, 2005 as a Shrub.com Article. In my process of switching all articles over to this blog, I will be reposting old entries. What follows is in its original form without any editing.

Why is it that the most visible critiques on video games come from people who are obviously not even casual gamers? I always hear “violence” and “sexually explicit content” thrown around without the writer having an understanding, or offering an in-depth critique, on what those words mean for video games. I find that these so-called “anti-game crusaders” often buy into alarmist extremes, thereby misrepresenting the influence of videogames, without ever asking why such a correlation exists. Most times, this perspective misses the intricacies of the games and, in the case of online games, the gaming communities.

It’s understandable, then, when I lumped a Vancouver Sun article entitled “Those MMORPGs: Threat or Menance?” (March 24, 2005, A13) written by Erin Morisette, a political science undergrad, into the same category. Morisette seeks to prove that MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games) are “sedentary, solitary and anti-social, offering little in return,” or so the subtitle under the header would have us believe. While I can’t argue with the sedentary aspect, I find it hard to believe that anyone could accuse online gaming of being “solitary and anti-social.”

I suppose the pertinent question to ask, then, is “What makes a community?” For Morisette, one requisite is that it be in a tangible environment that enables the “developing of essential social skills or connecting with their real communities and cities.” What only someone who has played an MMORPG can fully understand, though, is that the games are designed to discourage progressing without the help of others. Most online games, and especially MMOs, are not for the anti-social; the whole point of being online is interacting with others! One of the staples of MMOs are online groups (guilds, linkshells, clans, etc) that give players a community, oftentimes of like-minded people, with which they can chat and play with beyond meeting people at random. Morisette goes onto criticize these games for being “effective at isolating and disconnecting players from their real-life communities because of their design,” again playing into the extremes and missing the fact that often parts or whole of real-life friendgroups will play together. I, for instance, play on a World of Warcraft server in the guild of one of my friends and will soon be starting a character on another server to play specifically with my mother and her boyfriend. Many people in my guild play with real-life friends, and I would be playing with more of mine if I had started playing sooner and tried to encourage us all onto one server.

To be fair, Morisette does admit that not all gamers tend towards the extremes, and that games can be fun. Yet, she is unaware of, or ignores, that some MMOs fit into her wish that the technology being used in “creative ways [that] contribute to the success and interconnectedness of future communities that will be dominated by today’s youth.” While the gaming communities are in no way better or worse than other kinds of community, one benefit of meeting people online is that you aren’t immediately aware of their physical aspects – gender, race, age, etc. These environments provide a way for players to connect to people outside of their immediate vicinity, giving them access to a wide variety of people with their own ideas and experiences. This gives you the opportunity to be friends with someone who you would never meet in real life because many real life communities tend to be on the homogeneous side. MMOs also develop teamwork, since having an effective party is an essential part of most gameplay, as well an understanding of social mobility and hierarchy as one levels and, in their guild community, becomes better known and higher rank. There is also the possibility of being ostracized, or in extreme cases punished by a GM, if you don’t play nice. Those who exhibit selfish and anti-group traits often find themselves kicked out of parties, guilds, and thereby effectively cut off from levelling in the game. Most online games also have guidelines on language and harassment, which is not always effective but with such large environments, as in real life, it is hard to deal with every occurrence quickly and easily.

In the end, though, while Morisette did bring parents into the equation I am disappointed that yet another article blames video games for being entertaining rather than blaming parents for letting objects do the parenting for them. Video games, surprisingly, are not the root of kids problems. Neither is television, or pornography, or D&D, or books, or sports, or any other entertaining hobby. These are merely tools for spending time, all of which develop different skills and can be good in moderation and bad in excess. Every aspect of life deserves to be critiqued, and video games are no exception, but this alarmist malarkey is old, tired, and completely off-base. Parents, you want your kids to lead an active lifestyle and be involved in your community? Don’t take away their video games, but do your bloody job and make sure they engage in a wide range of different activities, get involved in their life (if that means playing video games too, then you should make the sacrifice; you might find you enjoy it), and stop looking for a scapegoat for your own failings – be an adult and admit that you’re not perfect.

Shrub.com Article for January

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January’s article, Gender Bending in Utena: the movie, is just what the title makes it sound to be: a look at the way the movie handles gender.

Note: Happy new year everyone! This is a journal article from a class on Japanese fiction that I took last Spring. If I was a good person, I’d revise and expand it (some of it’s a bit disjointed, ’cause I waited to the last minute to write it), but I’m not, so y’all have to deal with it it as-is. This article contains spoilers for those who haven’t seen the movie.

The first glimpse of Utena is of a woman in man’s clothing – and in more than just the literal sense; she has short hair, wears pants instead of the typical girl’s uniform, speaks in male language, and for all intents and purposes “passes” as a boy until her (gasp!) breasts are revealed in her first duel. But Utena’s gender bending does not end there; indeed, as her typical outfit implies, it extends to her role of Prince (both her self-assumed identity and later when she becomes engaged to Anthy, the Rose Bride), and later her transformation into a car (henceforth known as the Utenamobile).

Shrub.com Article for November

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November’s article, Silent Treatment is a short story and commentary on popular culture, the entertainment industry, and women’s place in all this.

Wanted immediately:

Hot [must be hot!] woman [must be female!] between 5’3″ and 5’10” [must not be taller than 5’10”!] to play a role in upcoming police drama on a major network. Character is in coma – at no point will she ever awaken from her deep slumber. Other characters (men) will interact with her, but she will generally be non-responsive. Scenes may sometimes involve physical interactions, but generally she will be non-responsive during such interactions. When responsive, other characters will keep her in check by telling her to stop being a bitch and that if they wanted to hear a lecture, they would’ve gone to college.
Call 582-284-2949. Ask for Cindy.

Shrub.com Article for October

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October’s article, Fantasy Women, discusses the “chicks in chainmail” stereotype found in many fantasy based media.

While in the midst of writing my Girls and Game Ads series, I found myself going off on a tangent on the depiction of women in the fantasy genre and how it helped lead to the rise of the “girl power” paradigm we find deeply enmeshed in current Western pop-culture. While the whole “chicks in chainmail” deal was already being challenged by fresh authors and ideas by the time I got into fantasy, it remains an important part of the genre’s history. It is this idea that I will be addressing in this article.

Shrub.com Article for September

tekanji

September’s article, Sword of the Valiant, is a critique of the ’80’s film of the same name.

How about a little wine with that cheese? Sword of the Valiant, produced in true 80s fashion, is laughable. The movie claims to be the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I am not sure what copy they read, but I can assure you, this movie had nothing to do with the title other than the main character being named Gawain and the opening scene- sort of.

Shrub.com Article for August

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August’s article, Tilt, Game 6., is a short story on life, death, and the road in between.

I grabbed my computer and stuffed my trunk full of documents and booze and books and clothes. I opened the mapbook to a random page and pointed to a random destination. There. I drive.

The landlord didn’t much care. I found someone else to take over my lease.

I told my boss I’d be gone for a while. I didn’t tell him exactly how long, though, so it could be forever, right? He probably thinks I’ll be gone a week. Anyway, it was a shit job. Fuck him, that prick.

Shrub.com Article for July

tekanji

July’s article, In Defense of Domesticity, is a short piece on domestic labour and feminism.

Because of some crossed wires, I’m taking this month instead of johnmoon (he’ll be up for August). Since I’m in the middle of moving, I’m going to shamelessly plagiarize my own comment from a thread over at reappropriate. On our blog, I argued for the ability for people to choose what, if any, parts of traditional femininity and masculinity are right for them. Taking the argument to its logical conclusion, everyone should have the right to choose what kind of life is right for them whether it be working a job or taking care of the house and kids.

When I was younger, I was pretty much against anything feminine. My personality, combined with my having a backlash against what was expected of me, caused me to get into a “male-normative” mindset (meaning that I thought that traditionally male things were “normal” and traditionally feminine things were “bad”): I hated makeup, and “girly” clothing like dresses and skirts, and, yes, I looked down on people who aspired to the domestic. It took me a long time to step away from that mindset but it wasn’t until I got a big dose of feminist theory that I really understood why it’s so important to see things such as domestic labour as valuable.