Gender Transgression and Video Game Culture

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that video games represent a site for role-playing in ways that violate both the corporate-constructed gender roles of game worlds, as well as the norms of masculine and feminine in our society. The writer discusses how this analysis applies to a range of levels in video game culture: the design level with its sub-culture of game patch design where users patch existing video games to fundamentally re-design game worlds that reflect distinct constructions of masculinity and femininity and the game play level where both female and male users play games in ways that challenge normative gender roles. The writer's main focus is on female game designers and players, whose interactions with video game culture critically undermines common conceptions of female gender identity.

Outline:
Introduction
Gender Bias as a Methodological Problem
Women Coding Women: The New Gaming Female
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"In reviewing the scholarly literature upon gender roles and video game culture, it is important to recognize the operation of gender bias as a methodological problem. Before one can address the subject of video game and gender role transgression among females, one must note the profound degree to which traditional gender biases appear to impact scholarship on the subject of video game culture. Consider, for example, the question of the popularity of video games among males versus females, as well as the view that males prefer "violent" games while female players tend to reject these games for games that better reflect "feminine" qualities. There is a substantial body of research literature that has argued since the late 1980s that video games are a predominantly male cultural preoccupation. Surveys tended to reveal an extraordinary disproportion both in terms of numbers of players and the lengths of time devoted to gameplay. For example, adolescent boys have been shown to be as much as three times more likely to play video games as adolescent girls."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Eastin, Matthew. "Video Game Violence and the Female Game Player:Self- and Opponent Gender Effects on Presence and Aggressive Thoughts." Human Communication Research. 32 (2006): 351-372.
• Funk, Jeanne and Buchman, Debra. "Children's Perceptions of Gender Differences in Social Approval for Playing Video Games." Sex Roles. 35 (1996): 219-231.
• Gailey, Christina. "Mediated Messages: Gender, Class and Cosmos in Home Video Games." Journal of Popular Culture. 27 (1993): 81-97.
• Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto." In The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. Ed. Amelia Jones. London: Routledge 2003: 475-496.
• Kline, Stephen. Video Game Culture: Leisure and Play Preferences of BC Teens. Burnaby BC: Simon Fraser University, 1998.

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