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What next?

So, what games would people like to see me critique next?

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Detroit: Become Human - Dehumanization and Lesbians

After playing Detroit: Become Human, I realized just how men perceive women. To them, we are androids that exist for their pleasure.

Before the game's release, allegations surfaced that the studio's workplace environment was little more than a toxic frathouse stuffed with privileged white men (see https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/01/david-cages-quantic-dreams-accused-of-being-a-toxic-workplace/). The game certainly seems to back up this allegation, since the game is full of lesbians.

I believe in representation, but representation is not pornography and representation must not exist to make straight white men feel good. Just like Jonathan McIntosh said about Tracer from Overwatch (https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/811308744667762688), the lesbian "Traci" (what a strikingly similar name) androids of Detroit: Become Human are nothing more than pandering to the male gaze, dressed up as "diversity." Yeah, they're about as diverse as so-called "lesbian" porn (which is nothing more than porn for straight men that panders to their fantasies about how women 'should' be).

If you want more evidence of this, take a look at the scene with Elijah Kamski. Kamski is the central Tech Bro of the game and lives the fantasy life all white male nerds dream of; this is a fantasy life where their intellects are worshipped and they have threesomes with two traditionally-feminine, 'sexy' android women in the swimming pool all the time, and have a 'hot' android secretary waiting on them hand and foot. In the figure of Kamski, Quantic Dream made it clear who their target audience was.

Of course, Quantic Dream try to appear diverse and welcoming; they have WoC authority figures like Amanda, female central characters like Kara (whom they debase by making her act as a housewife to some abusive toxically-masculine-yet-emasculated drug-addict who is the embodiment of far too many Trump supporters, and who's "freedom" consists of becoming a mother rather than acheiving great things in a real career), sympathetic PoC's like Luther, and even an overarching plot about liberation. But that's mere window dressing for a dangerously retrograde game that ultimately works out to the appropriation of lesbianism for the purposes of straight male pleasure.

Why can't women love women without pleasuring men in the process? Why do lesbians have to justify their sexuality as some kind of benefit to straight men? And why on earth do we allow fratboys like Cage to pass off their fap material as sympathetic or diverse or inclusive or accepting? He wrote a hetero-tech-bro faux-lesbianism-fest where nerd incel gamers can indulge in their sex-bot fantasies, and tried to pass it off as a narrative of liberation.

McIntosh was correct; you can't truly be diverse without upsetting the privileged straight white male gaming audience. True diversity and inclusivity means forcing them to face their privilege and accept that a diverse game cannot be about them.

In today's world, women are androids and feminists are deviants. I refuse to be complicit in my own dehumanization. And I refuse to let straight men posture as supporters of my liberation when all they really want to do is masturbate over it. Detroit's seeming sympathy towards lesbianism is just an attempt to force all female sexuality - including nonheterosexual female sexuality - back into the role of serving straight males.

I hope to see the Lesbian community engage in thorough, full-throated critique of this atrociously misogynist game.

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This post is just the siren-song of individualism and we must resist it.

Yes, not all members of any group. Big deal. Vacuous truth. Reciting it just ignores the reality of systemic power differentials between groups.

The soldier in question did the right thing... refuse to be bigoted against Muslims... but for the wrong reason! He didn’t look at his own white privilege, he didn’t think about the history of Western oppression of the Middle East, he didn’t think about the atrocious cruelty that is being perpetrated in Palestine and he didn’t come to terms with the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. Instead, he invoked the same liberal/libertarian crap that MRAs cite when they derail conversations and go on about how Not All Men Are Evil.

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Too bad this great message has to be sullied with toxically masculine militaristic imagery. Seriously that picture just looks like a bunch of dudebros having a circlejerk...

“You’ve seen the @ItsOnUs Weeks of Action. You’ve talked changing the culture on your campus. Now what? Apply to be an #ItsOnUs Student Leader for the ‘18-’19 academic year on your campus and step to the front lines of combating this epidemic: bit.ly/IOULeaders”

-  It’s On Us 

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"Doom" (2016), Misogyny and the Eve-Pandora Myth

The new Doom game may have received positively by critics, but the game itself is a reactionary fantasy. Every time feminism makes progress, the patriarchal status quo attempts to counter this; Susan Faludi documents this in her work Backlash (1991). Doom can be seen as the ludic manifestation of this phenomenon.

Of course, Doom is susceptible to the critique that applies to nearly all shooters; the player character is a white male (thus demonstrating that the creators believed the player would identify with the character's whiteness and maleness) with a gun who uses violence to solve problems and is not permitted any other recourse. As Edge magazine's 1991 review of the original Doom lamented, one cannot talk to the monsters. The employment of the masculine means of problem solving, to the exclusion of all others (alternatives that are implicitly cast as feminine), is symptomatic of a culture that privileges the masculine above the feminine. Like other first person shooters, Doom creates a scenario where femininity is worthless and thus perpetuates the patriarchal values system.

But the plot of Doom only brings the misogyny and the "backlash" aspect to the fore. Note that spoilers follow.

In recent times, feminist and intersectional critiques of video gaming have become prominent (for example, the work of Anita Sarkeesian), and these critiques have infuriated the white males that dominate the "hardcore" gaming scene. At the same time, games focusing on narrative and exploration rather than violence have gained acclaim and fame in recent times. Gaming is now becoming an hobby for a more demographically-diverse audience than it once was, thus destabilizing the "gamer" identity and bringing into question the foundations of that identity (such as resentment against women and marginalization of non-white and non-heterosexual persons). It could be said that we are entering a new era of gaming; symbolically, Doom positions itself from the very start as a backlash to this new era.

Plot is greatly de-emphasized in this game, and peaceful exploration is rejected in favor of violent conquest. Mechanically, the game is the exact opposite of socially aware, ludically non-masculine works such as Gone Home, Dear Esther, Sunset and Everyone's Gone To The Rapture. Yet what little plot there is begins with your character regaining consciousness atop a stone slab carved with ancient sigils and recovering equipment which is similarly presented; unsurprisingly it is revealed that your character is an ancient warrior who has arisen to confront a demonic infestation that takes place in the future.

In other words, your character is from some glorious ancient era and awakes into a new era, and manifestly does not like what he sees. This substantiates Doom as a reactionary fantasy; an attempt to restore the old order. The UAC wishes to catapault humanity into the future, into a new era, and your character is not willing to let this occur. Even the gameplay itself is driven by an attempt to resurrect the kind of shooter design which dominated in the days of the early 1990s; Doom conveys the conservative attitude that social progress is always degeneration, and that unless we revert to the Good Old Days and their Good Old Ways, we will eternally slouch towards Gomorrah (as conservative jurist Robert Bork put it).

But, as made clear in this very first scene, it is not merely progress but woman-centered progress which is the enemy; the first holographic flashback the player witnesses is that of a woman looking at the player-character's closed casket and saying he must not be released, and that he would destroy everything. The player-character is not only positioned as the restorer of the past (using guns to stand athwart history whilst yelling stop; an image sure to delight conservatives) but as having to fight a woman in order to do this.

The female character in question, Olivia Pierce, is the leader of the research project that is responsible for the demonic invasion which the player must oppose; by the same token, the new era of gaming that Doom opposes is defined by the embrace of non-hypermasculine (and thus implicitly feminine, for under patriarchy anything which lacks sufficient manliness is deemed as womanly) gameplay, the embrace and celebration of women, and intellectual leadership within gaming being open to women. The symbolism is clear; this new age of gaming is not merely bad (i.e. associated with the demonic) but feminine. Doom is symbolically a backlash against feminism and the progress women are making in gaining acceptance in gaming circles.

Doom uses demons from a fire-and-brimstone hell as the enemy; we can therefore say that the game implicitly coveys an Abrahamic worldview. This is further substantiated in the characterization of Olivia Pierce, who is a collaborator with hell and triggers the demonic invasion; similarly, Abrahamic religions blame women for the Fall Of Man (Eve ate the apple and encouraged Adam to do so). This misogynistic myth is also present in Hellenic mythology, where Pandora is responsible for all the world's ills.

As Samuel Hayden, who is portrayed as Pierce's mentor, says, "Olivia was weak." The idea that it is women who are weak and thus susceptible to eating forbidden apples or opening Pandora's Boxes is present both in Abrahamic and Hellenic mythology. In addition, both mythologies say that women were created by God (albiet as a derivative of males) or the King of the Gods (as a way to punish males); Samuel Hayden "created" Olivia Pierce in the sense of mentoring her.

But Olivia went against Hayden's will and now demonic invasions are occurring. In even more symbolism sure to appease conservatives, we have a male god figure (Hayden) who's disobedient creation (Olivia) is a weak woman. Doom constructs an allegory for the Genesis story. Christian churches may protest the violence in the game, but this game is propaganda for their worldview. In addition, Hayden is the player character's "mission control" - he gives the player character the objectives to be accomplished; this only substantiates Hayden's position as symbolic god.

In summary, Doom is a backlash against feminism and feminism's growing influence in gaming. It positions itself as a reactionary fantasy in which a white male, under the guidance of a male god, challenges a new age of gaming (both in terms of culture and mechanics) which is equated to an evil that is unleashed by feminine weakness. Doom attempts to wind back the clock to a gaming culture of white, Christian, warlike hypermasculinity. Doom casts Olivia Pierce in the classically misogynist role of Eve or Pandora. This game, frankly, is almost an extended campaign ad for the Republican agenda and its War On Women.

Any feminist worthy of the title should see this game for what it is; Pierce symbolizes everything attacked by Gamergaters (artistic, nonviolent and experimental-narrative games, feminist critique of gaming, and the advancement of women in gaming), and the Doom Marine symbolizes the white male Christian conservative backlash against these things. In making Doom, id Software and Bethesda have shown themselves as complicit in the right-wing's misogyny.

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Women who betray other women in order to appease men can DIAF.

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Truth.

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I really hate “father-son” stories. Privileged males masturbating incestuously over their manhood. We need less glorification of toxic masculinity in our world.

Atreus painting and lineart study from the other day ❄️ I need to save up some money so I can buy God of War!! 

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Truth

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Survivors of sexual assault deserve respect. Survivors also deserve access to the full range of health services and support — including emergency contraception, rape kits, STD testing, PEP, and abortion.

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New comic! (link to comic)

In all of my workspaces I have been gendered as a woman, and all of these things have happened to me. . I find the more ‘technical’ or corporate the teams are, the more likely that the responsibility of ‘non essential labour’ in the office falls on women and femmefolk (my current office is actually very good in this respect, which is really refreshing).

For more information on this phenomenon, read through this excellent metafilter thread on emotional labour.

What is this comic about? Well, generally things like keeping the office tidy day to day, setting up for and cleaning up after meetings, organizing gifts and social events, fundraising, congratulations and condolences 'from the office’, and administrative work like minutes-taking… pretty much everything that is 'volunteer’ is likely to fall to women.

Sometimes when people argue that this work is non-essential, and that women only do it because they want to do it (and that, by extension, these just aren’t things that men care about). The thing is, community building is essential work. People who talk about having great work environments talk about things like hanging out with colleagues after work, having summer sport leagues, lottery groups, that time everyone pitched in vacation time during a family illness, that gift card that appeared on your desk on your birthday…that’s all stuff someone thinks about and plans and organizes, and it’s non-billable work, so they often do it for free, and that person is more often than not a woman. And that’s important, vital work, it makes people feel like they can come to work every day and at least not hate it all the time.

It’s completely devalued labour, and it falls in the laps of women to maintain. Sometimes guys think they’re participating by having the idea of the work: “Jim’s mother passed away - maybe we should get a card to pass around for him” - but the idea is as far as that participation goes. The organizing and execution of that 'nice idea’ falls on someone else entirely.

Stuff like this totally undercuts women at work. For example, any time it’s assumed that I’ll take meeting minutes, my ability to participate fully in that meeting is compromised because I’m taking notes instead of concentrating on my own contributions.

And not doing this work has consequences too. There was a workspace where I was totally watching this happen, so I resolved to act like the men on my team did. I left rooms when they left them (in the condition they left them in), I used the kitchen in the same way, I left my desk in the same condition, but guess who got called out on failing to contribute to the office environment? It wasn’t the guys.

If you’re a guytype and you want to be a good ally in your worplace, be the person who volunteers. I mean it. Look around, see who’s doing the work that isn’t in their job descriptions, and pitch in. Take notes, buy cards, organize drinks, and for goodness sake, tidy the kitchen.  And it’s ok if this social stuff really isn’t important to you, but don’t you dare be the person who says that it’s not important work, and then feels slighted when no one remembers their birthday.

If you’re already doing this, awesome. Keep up the good work.

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Respect women, boys.

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“Female subordination runs so deep that it is still viewed as inevitable or natural rather than as a politically constructed reality maintained by patriarchal interests, ideology, and institutions.”

-  Charlotte Bunch

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Gay Male Misogyny, everybody.

I’m pro-gay-rights obviously. But as bell hooks and Carol Hanisch pointed out, gay male culture can be very misogynist.