Even looking at the survey results, and then looking at the regular customers in a local branch of GameStop, it's hard to take claims of a burgeoning female gaming population seriously. It can't really be true, can it? Girls aren't really gaming, are they? But all my female friends play games. Well, they confess to playing games; they don't proudly announce it. But they all play videogames. And they're not playing Snake, they're playing Metal Gear Solid.
There are even studies indicating girls will delve into serious gaming under the right conditions. In 2003, Gareth Schott and Siobhan Thomas of the University of London decided to investigate how young people react to videogaming. They went into high school classrooms with GameBoy Advance SPs in hand and set them in front of 14- and 15-year-old kids. The boys immediately identified them, rushed over and dominated. The girls sat back and let them.
They tried the same experiment in classes with only girls. Without the boys to push them out the way, and once the Schott and Thomas explained the devices weren't some sort of makeup case (no, really), the girls mostly recognized Mario onscreen, but would predominantly declare, "Oh, I can't do these things."
Prompted to continue, Schott and Thomas found that after a few minutes, they couldn't get the girls to stop playing. This transition led the researchers to conclude that there was some sort of "permission" barrier between girls and gaming.
This is a barrier that's being increasingly eroded. It's the continued focus on demanding that games be made more accessible to female gamers that's perpetuating the myth that there aren't any games for female gamers, which is only more frustrating when I look at the games around me now.
Half-Life 2: Episode 1 has me play the subservient man, following the instructions of the more able, the more skilled, the more creative and the more intelligent woman. It is I that assists her, shining the flashlight so she may shoot, running and hiding while she fires the sniper rifle. She is specifically feminine, and she's specifically in charge. Dreamfall had me alternate between April Ryan and Zoë Castillo, encountering a world through two distinct female perspectives. Metroid Prime: Hunters has me playing super-hard action heroine Samus. And those are simply the games I've happened to play in the last few weeks.
Pretending this isn't the case is just plain weird. How is this a medium girls can't access? These are, like the majority of releases, videogames that in no way enforce or reinforce sexist stereotypes. And focusing on the few games that do perpetuate stereotypes is the very device that alienates girls from gaming. It focuses the attention away from the real issue: a media that's writing to the boys, but writing about the girls - which I may well be guilty of now myself.
However, my cry remains: Can we all stop saying that this is a medium predominantly aimed at men, and maybe see if this is a refrain that has simply been reinforcing itself for a good number of years? If we recognize that the majority of games we play don't enforce sexual stereotypes, gender biases or sexist principles, we'll encourage and develop a vocabulary that speaks about games to everyone in a non-discriminatory tone. We are the instigators of our own confining delusion, and by maturing beyond this delusion, we will help to ensure games are acceptable pastimes for both sexes.
John Walker is now a bit nervous of getting yelled at. He's frequently nervous of getting yelled at for things he writes on his own site at http://botherer.cream.org, and in various U.K. gaming magazines, such as PC Gamer and [I]PC Format[/i]. Yell nicely. He's a bit of a wimp.
