Videogames: Women in videogames & Further feminist theory

 

Read this Guardian article on Gamergate 10 years on. Answer the following questions:

1) What was Gamergate? 

A loosely organised misogynistic online harassment campaign and the right-wing's backlash against feminism,diversity etc

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

Sweet Baby Inc is secretly forcing game developers to change the bodies, ethnicities and sexualites of video game characters to conform to "woke" ideology.

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

That change is inevitable and nothing forced is happening. It is how the industry works and how it will always be. Audiences are different and trying to change everything will lead to a stronger Resistance against that change.

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’?

The advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes is what feminism is based on.

Patriarchy is  a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

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

She published her book because most feminist theories worldwide have come from privileged women who are unaware of the lives of those living on the margin. As a result, most of their theories lack wholeness. It's the lack of such a feminist theory that her inspired her to write this book

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

The focus on hooks writing was to explore the intersectionality of race, capitalism and gender and what she described as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination.

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

Hooks recognizes that social classifications e.g race, gender etc are interconnected, and that ignoring their intersection creates oppression towards women and change the experience of living as a woman in society

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

 

According to Van Zoonen, media plays a significant role in constructing and reinforcing gender roles. Media representations often perpetuate traditional gender stereotypes.

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?

van Zoonen sees gender as socially constructed, meaning that we act the way we think we should due to what we have seen around us. This is linked to Judith Butlers theory of gender roles are a perfomance.

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

Feminists criticise women's magazines as commerical sites of exaggerated femininity. I do agree with them as sometimes these magazines ultimately lead to certain women feeling body insecurity and other terrible things.

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?

Colours can be used to signal sex difference. The association of pink with femininity and blue with masculinity ultimately originated from 19th century France. This links with David Gauntllets' ideas regarding the changing representation of masculinity.

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

van Zoonen argues that the influence of the media is dependent on:

• Whether the institution is commercial or public
• The platform upon which they operate
• Genre
• Target audiences 
• The place the media text holds within the audiences daily lives

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

van Zoonen builds on Stuart Hall's negotiated readings, arguing that the negotiated readings focus on the way meanings are encoded and decoded.

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 is linked to Stuart Hall's Intentional approach. The producer of the text constructs the world as they see it and the audience accepts those values encoded in the text.

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?

This links to bell hooks views on feminism and intersectionality because it discusses how power imbalance cannot be simply defined as being between males and females. Van Zoonen discusses how bringing in other intersections complicated power. E.g. we can say that males have more power than females in society but what happens if we bring in race or sexuality it changes drastically.