Creative Gamer Girl: Recent Post

Girl Gamers - Part II

Saturday, January 07, 2017

Continuation of an article I wrote back in 2012. View the first part here.

Women in video games are incredibly sexualised. I loved Lara Croft when I was young, and she has grown with me throughout my life. When I was a child I did not notice her DD breasts and preposterous proportions— I saw a strong, independent bad- ass who I could look up to, a woman who wasn’t a ‘damsel in distress’.

Lara Croft may have broken the mould concerning women in video games, but she still conformed to the idea of a perfect woman. Men wanted to be in control of Lara and some claimed they wanted to take care of her. Women wanted to be her because of how strong she was and she had the ‘perfect body’. The majority of female characters in video games have big breasts, impossible waist sizes and outfits that are highly impractical when climbing up a mountain or getting into fights. Dead or Alive is the perfect example- busty, scantily clad females wearing bikinis and fighting each other... as you do...

Of course men do not get off lightly with how they are portrayed in video games either. Most of them are dashingly handsome with huge toned muscles. Nothing about them is realistic. Both genders are painted to how society thinks the perfect specimen should be.

I do not blame the gaming market for this; the media in general are notorious when it comes to projecting a perfect person. People are under pressure from all sides on how they should look, dress, feel and live. Airbrushed billboards, magazines, television adverts stare out from every corner, men women and children are being told how they should be. But who is to say what is ‘right’? How we should dress? Who dares to have that authority?

However, I do think games are moving in the right direction. For instance, comparing Lara Croft now to how she used be shows the first sign of change. Lara no longer has the 36DD’s, the tiny waist and big hips. Her boobs have been scaled down to a 34D and the rest of her is far more in proportion. This is something that proves to me that times are actually changing— hopefully more will happen in the future.

One way I think they could make a step in the right direction is to erase or adapt booth babes. If you don’t know what booth babes are, you have never been to a gaming convention. They are models that stand around in very short skirts, tight t-shirts and smile at passing gamers. I doubt many of them actually play games, they are there to make men drool and possibly get a few of said men to play a demo of the game the babes are trying to promote. Why are there no booth men? Handsome guys with six packs greeting the swelling number of female gamers. That would be fair, and then both sexes would be guilty of objectifying each other.

There is one thing I’m not quite sure where I stand; back in May, Maxim held a girl gamer competition. Girls posted sexy pictures of themselves on a website to receive votes from fellow gamers - male and female. On one hand, I’m happy because female gamers in general are getting more accepted. But on the other hand, many of the pictures are semi-naked with much cleavage and pouting. The comments are from mostly men leering over them and a few wishing them luck. Surely, this is not a step in the right direction?

Of course, it is good that girls can say “I play games” and feel sexy about it rather than socially inadequate; but also why must they get votes by posing half naked and showing their cleavage? We should all be proud of what we have, but is this the right way to go about getting respect from fellow gamers? The girls that don’t appear half naked haven’t got as many votes as the soft porn pictures and I find that pretty depressing. I voted for a lady who had her clothes on in every photo, apart from pulling down her jeans slightly to show a geeky tattoo in one.

I know most of this article is unanswered questions, but that’s the point, we just need to be aware and think about these issues. Maybe then we can change them.

Game Article

Girl Gamers - Part I

Saturday, July 16, 2016

This week I unearthed another old article I wrote back in May 2012. I was googling myself - as you do - and unexpectedly found it in the archives of a website I used to write for. I'd completely forgotten about it. As the blog title suggests, it's looking at the term 'Girl Gamers' and seems just as topical now as it did back in 2012.

A friend asked me a question a week or so ago, “Why does the phrase ‘girl gamers’ exist?” A very short and seemingly simple question, but it got me thinking. This friend, called Naomi, is currently filming a documentary about girl gamers for her dissertation and that question was one of many she interviewed me attempting to answer. But that one question sparked off thousands in my head and empowered me to write an article on the subject.

Firstly, have you ever heard someone use the term ‘boy gamer’? I haven’t. Why is this? Yes, the majority of gamers in the past have been male and so you can understand why it didn’t seem necessary to make their gender known. But today the gaming market is exploding and different people more than ever are picking up controllers. If we’re going to use the term ‘girl gamers’ we should start saying ‘boy gamer’, ‘silver-haired gamer’, ‘toddler gamer’ etc.

It does sound ridiculous, having to categorise that way; gamers should just be gamers no matter what their gender, age or favourite food. And if there must be a term we coin for women that happen to play games, why do we choose to use the word girl rather than female, lady or woman? Why must it be a word we associate being the innocent and young version of the female gender?

I have been playing games from a very young age starting off on the original Gameboy playing Tetris. It never occurred to me that I was doing something that appears to be out of the ordinary for girls to do or enjoy. A neighbour and I used to spend days with our Gameboys trading Pokemon and trying to do the fastest speed run. We were both girls.

One of the issues that I find is, whenever I mention that I enjoy playing games, guys immediately see me as hotter than I was before I mentioned I like to shoot people in the head. Why is this? When a guy tells me he plays video games, I don’t suddenly change the way I see him, thinking video games magically change his persona completely. Sometimes I do find it flattering that I have a past time that some guys find attractive, but most of the time I want to punch them in the mouth when they pull that surprised face.

Why do I feel like I must prove myself when playing with a male opponent? It seems the pressure is double: one, to win and another, to prove that girls can play games. Immature little boys shouting sexist and vulgar comments down the microphone at you as soon as they discover your gender can make winning harder; but also even more satisfying. This is one of the main reasons I decide not to have my microphone on much of the time. I honestly think the player’s attitude to my character and the fact I’m killing them will change dramatically when they hear the voice behind the knife-wielding man is actually a female. I play games for fun, so to have someone shouting ‘t*ts or GTFO’ at you is not something I want to battle with when trying to relax.

Luckily, I have been blessed with many male friends who do not see me as any different from them when gaming. Many times have we had geek days where we’ve each brought a controller, ordered food and sat for hours playing Co-op. Of course, the majority of male gamers are wonderful, respectful people but like anything, it’s the small number ruining it for the rest.

Everyone needs to realise now that we live in a very technological orientated age. Even little children are being given iPads as birthday presents (which is something I find ridiculous!) With the Kinect and Wii, the gaming market is opening up to families and to a much wider audience. This means women are of course going to be gaming more often; something the sexist part of the population are going to have to accept.

Continued in Part Two:
Booth Babes
Lara Croft Dead or Alive

Creative Snippets

An old piece of fiction pt 4

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year. Here's the final part of my short story I wrote back in 2010.

All city men had their guns pointed at the villagers. Mike noticed a twitch in the finger on the trigger and heard the first gunshot. He released his arrow. The arrow landed in earrings shoulder, making him drop his rifle and yell out. Before he saw where it landed, Mike got another arrow and primed it on the string.

The next second, all hell broke loose. Gunshots thundered through the peaceful settlement. Screams reached the clouds as the men fired at anyone who got in their way. Sam’s horse reared in fright and kicked a city man with tattoos down his arms.

Naomi pulled Jason away from the door and huddled over him in the corner of the room, ‘We’ll be alright,’ she whispered in his ear, reassuring herself at the same time.

Back outside, Natalie pounced on a city man with a ponytail, hitting him across the face with her bow. He fell back, bringing his hands to his nose where blood trickled from his nostrils.

‘Bitch!’ he spat and punched her in the stomach.

‘Please stop!’ Sam shouted but his voice was drowned out by the screams and gunshots.

Tattoo and earring man had reached the baskets, grabbing two in each hand and ran to the jeep, throwing them in the back.

‘Chris!’ Tattoo man yelled, ‘We’ve got ‘em.’

A city man barged into the cottage where Jason and his mother whimpered in the corner.

‘Hello there,’ he smiled seeing Naomi, and grabbed her by the hair. He wore big black sunglasses. ‘You’re a pretty one aren’t you?’

‘Please, let me go. We'll give you whatever you need!’ she begged.

Jason sprung up and kicked the man in the shin as hard as he could.

Sunglasses dropped his mother and grabbed Jason instead, ‘You little shit!’

Jason spat in the man’s face.
From outside came the rumbling as the jeeps engine was started. Sunglasses flung Jason across the room, his face almost purple with anger.

His mother grabbed onto the man’s arm, ‘Please, just name your price to leave us alone.’

Sunglasses threw her off him, no longer interested in her and stormed over to Jason. He put his face right up to him, ‘Did you never got taught to respect your elders?’

Jason thought he could smell white spirit on the man's breath as he answered, ‘You are not one of my elders.’

Sunglasses hit Jason across the face, ‘You people make me sick. Dirty savages.’

‘You are the savage ones,’ Jason rubbed his cheek and tried to ignore the pain. Sunglasses stood tall, pointing his AK at Jason. Naomi screamed, grabbing at the man’s arm again.

‘Get off me you whore.’ Sunglasses yelled and kicked her back onto the soil.
Jason scrunched up his eyes to the gun, praying to Gaia as he did. He heard a gunshot, felt white-hot pain in his stomach and then nothing.

Creative Snippets

An old piece of fiction

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

I found an old piece of writing on my Dropbox that I wrote back in 2010. It was for an assignment at University. There is more, but I didn't feel like posting the whole lot at once. I like to think my writing has improved a little over the last few years. Enjoy.

Bees buzzed in the clumps of wild flowers by the dirt road, making the air clouded with noise. The smell of jasmine was heavy, mixing with the scent of cooking coming from the huts on the hill. Sparrows sung in the branches of the trees laden with blossom and wood pigeons flew from field to tree transporting materials to build nests. Yellow flowers grew plentiful across the rolling hills.

The tree he sat in was one of the tallest, he could see across the fields as far as the river at the bottom. He could see the huts he called home with goats grazing lazily on the dry grass. He watched as a ladybird landed on his stomach, tickling him with its tiny feet as it strolled towards his bellybutton and rested there for a while.

‘Jason! Where are you?’ his mothers voice pierced the natural silence and he turned over on his front- careful to brush the ladybird off him first- so he could see her through the branches. Resting his chin on his hand, he watched his mother stand with her hands on her hips, looking out towards the yellow field.

‘Up here.’ Jason called.

A goat came to nuzzle at her waist, absentmindedly she brought a hand down and began stroking its nose. ‘Mike will be back soon. Come down please.’

Jason frowned; he didn’t want to see his brother yet. He knew he would come back with exciting stories of who he had met and what he had bargained to get sugar. Maybe he would come back with oil- then Jason would never be able to hear the end of how wonderful he was.

Jason wrapped his legs around the knotted branch and slid off until he was hanging upside down in the air by his knees. He hung there, feeling the blood pound in his ears. A cool wind rustled the flowers and the fronds on the roof of the cottages. Jason shivered. He grabbed the branch and lowered himself to the bleached grass. It crackled between his toes as he felt the warmth from the earth travel to the soles of his feet.

At that moment, the sounds of hooves on the dirt road reached the village and the villagers came out to greet the travellers. Jason hung back, kicking a stone.

His brother was at the head, jumping down before the horse had halted to embrace his mother. They had been gone three days and no one had been sure whether they would come back.

The city was a dangerous place. It was necessary to visit to get the supplies they couldn’t grow themselves. There were gangs with guns who would do anything for sugar, coal and cooking oil. Buildings lay in ruin; grass grew through the potholed tarmac and vines pulled down lampposts. It was much hotter in the city, the sun reflected a thousand times in the shattered glass and black tarmac. It was a different world than the one Jason was used to.