Videogames: Women in videogames & Further feminist theory

 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 an online harassment campaign that began when a female game developer’s ex-boyfriend falsely accused her of exchanging sex for positive reviews of her indie game. This sparked widespread misogynistic abuse towards women in the gaming industry.

2) What is the recent controversy surrounding narrative design studio Sweet Baby Inc? 

Sweet Baby Inc has been accused by critics of altering characters’ ethnicity, body types, and sexualities in games to fit a so-called “woke” agenda.

3) What does the article conclude regarding diversity in videogames?

The article concludes that diversity is not being forced into games. Instead, it is developing naturally as the gaming audience becomes more diverse.

Part 2: Further Feminist Theory: Media Factsheet

Use our Media Factsheet archive on the M: drive Media Shared (M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets) or here using your Greenford Google login. Find Media Factsheet #169 Further Feminist Theory, read the whole of the Factsheet and answer the following questions:

1) What definitions are offered by the factsheet for ‘feminism ‘and ‘patriarchy’?

Feminism is a movement that aims for equality between men and women socially, economically, and politically. Patriarchy refers to a system where men hold more power than women.

2) Why did bell hooks publish her 1984 book ‘Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center’?

Bell hooks wrote the book to highlight how mainstream feminism often ignored women from minority and working-class backgrounds, focusing mainly on the experiences of wealthy white women.

3) What aspects of feminism and oppression are the focus for a lot of bell hooks’s work?

Hooks focuses on how oppression is shaped by factors such as race, class, and sexuality, arguing that simply making women equal to men does not address deeper inequalities.

4) What is intersectionality and what does hooks argue regarding this?

Intersectionality is the idea that different aspects of identity overlap and affect how people experience oppression. Hooks argues that poor Black women may share more experiences with poor Black men than with wealthy white women, showing gender alone is not enough to explain power.

5) What did Liesbet van Zoonen conclude regarding the relationship between gender roles and the mass media?

Van Zoonen argues that the mass media plays a key role in shaping gender identity and that feminism had previously been under-researched in media studies.

6) Liesbet van Zoonen sees gender as socially constructed. What does this mean and which other media theorist we have studied does this link to?

It means that ideas about masculinity and femininity are created by society rather than biology. This links to Judith Butler’s theory that gender is a performance shaped by social expectations.

7) How do feminists view women’s lifestyle magazines in different ways? Which view do you agree with?

Some feminists argue these magazines promote unrealistic ideas of femininity and encourage consumerism. Others believe they now offer more choice and diverse identities. I agree that while magazines can be limiting, they now present a wider range of identities than in the past.

8) In looking at the history of the colours pink and blue, van Zoonen suggests ideas gender ideas can evolve over time. Which other media theorist we have studied argues things evolve over time and do you agree that gender roles are in a process of constant change? Can you suggest examples to support your view?

Stuart Hall argues that meanings change depending on social and cultural contexts. For example, modern adverts often show men doing household chores, which challenges traditional gender roles.

9) What are the five aspects van Zoonen suggests are significant in determining the influence of the media?

Whether the media is commercial or publicly funded, The platform used (print or digital), The genre, The target audience, How important the media text is in everyday life

10) What other media theorist can be linked to van Zoonen’s readings of the media?

Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory links to how media targets male audiences, while Stuart Hall’s audience reception theory explains how different people interpret media texts differently.

11) Van Zoonen discusses ‘transmission models of communication’. She suggests women are oppressed by the dominant culture and therefore take in representations that do not reflect their view of the world. What other theory and idea (that we have studied recently) can this be linked to?

This links to Hall’s encoding and decoding model, where dominant ideologies are encoded into media texts. It also connects to the hypodermic needle model, which suggests audiences passively absorb media messages.

12) Finally, van Zoonen has built on the work of bell hooks by exploring power and feminism. She suggests that power is not a binary male/female issue but reflects the “multiplicity of relations of subordination”. How does this link to bell hooks?

Both argue that power is shaped by multiple factors such as race, class, gender, and sexuality, rather than being a simple male-versus-female issue.

A/A* Extension tasks: TED talk

Finally, if you’re interested in some of these ideas, there is plenty more reading and watching you can do. For example, watch this TEDx talk by renowned Nigerian/American novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ‘We should all be feminists’: