Video games: Women in games + 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? 
A modern culture war.

2) What is the recent controversy surrounding narrative design studio Sweet Baby Inc? 
Being accused of secretly forcing game developers to change the bodies, ethnicities and sexualities of video game characters to fit the 'woke' ideology. 

3) What does the article conclude regarding diversity in videogames?
Nobody is forcing diversity into games.

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: a movement which aims for equality for women
Patriarchy: a limitation to women receiving the same treatment as men

2) Why did bell hooks publish her 1984 book ‘Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center’?
Because diverse voices has been marginalised and been put outside the main body of feminism.

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

4) What is intersectionality and what does hooks argue regarding this?
Intersectionality is the idea that your demographic is a factor to how much oppression you receive such as race, ethnicity, class and gender. A combination of any minority of these puts you further and further down the power scale.

5) What did Liesbet van Zoonen conclude regarding the relationship between gender roles and the mass media?
It reinforces gender stereotypes and socialisation.

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 society created in and that there is no fixed definition. 
Judith Butler is a theorist this links to.

7) How do feminists view women’s lifestyle magazines in different ways? Which view do you agree with?
Feminists have criticised women’s magazines as commercial sites of exaggerated femininity which serve to pull women into a consumer culture on the promise that the products they buy will alleviate their own bodily insecurities and low self-esteem.

I think it is for consumerism.

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?
Gilroy's theory of the development/ changing of masculinity. For example, metrosexuality.

9) What are the five aspects van Zoonen suggests are significant in determining the influence of the media?
  • Public or commercial institution
  • Platform
  • Genre
  • Target audiences
  • Location of media text

10) What other media theorist can be linked to van Zoonen’s readings of the media?
Male Gaze
Stuart hall - reception theory.

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?
Hypodermic needle  model
Cultivation theory

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?
That depending on what demographic you fall into will determine/ represent how much power you actually have in society, it is not just gender.

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