It’s About Power, Part II

This post is potentially triggering, as it discusses rape, voyeurism, and other forms of exploitation.

Of the sexes, women primarily deal with suggestive or sexually compromising pictures and videos posted online without their consent. Plenty of women are unaware that their bodies (naked or otherwise) are being viewed by vile individuals. Many others must live with the aftermath or knowledge of such an assault. Whether done by a (former) boyfriend or peeping tom, this particular form of violation is becoming more and more common, especially in the age of the Internet.

Revenge Porn, an old post on Jezebel, makes for an interesting read. The comments are especially telling: many of the women posting have dealt with the fears (and sometimes realities) of pictures being used against them, or have had to tolerate upskirters and peeping toms. Voyeurism, peeping toms, etc. are incredibly serious issues that disproportionately affect women. And like a lot of other thing that disproportionately affect women, rather than solving the problem, our society tries to determine whether or not the woman is guilty for what has happened, even in a situation like Erin Andrews’.

This issue is something which particularly bothers me because I’ve recently had to deal with it myself—and I’m an overweight, conventionally unremarkable, if not unattractive, girl.

In May, I found that naked pictures, my name, and the names of my high school and college were submitted to the image board site I mentioned in my last post. But by the time I had found it, the specific board my information and photos were posted to had been taken down (fortunately). All that remained was a “cache” version, which displayed a screen shot—sans the actual photos (but apparently I was naked in them, as the delightful comments indicated)—of the submission. It had been posted in February. I found it by chance by putting my name in Google’s search engine.

It was shocking for me. I felt absolutely sick to my stomach and tried to think of the last time I had taken any suggestive photographs of myself. I thought, No. No. I wouldn’t do that. Did I? And then I remembered. Four to five years ago, while in an incredibly abusive relationship, I had taken such photographs, because my boyfriend of the time had requested I do so. Considering that the post had my school information, and especially considering my ex had previously harassed me using a different image board site—one called 4chan, which some people may be familiar with—I was, and still am, fairly certain it was him.*

At 20, it feels like I’m still paying for the mistakes I made in the past. “Paying for my mistakes” – it’s a shitty way to have to phrase this particular situation, because no one should have to feel guilty for trusting another human being. No one should have to worry about photographs or videos being used against them, whether or not the material is procured with consent.

But it happens anyway. And it happens a lot.

The people willing to release pictures of their current/ex-girlfriends, current/ex-wives, or casual acquaintances are trying to exercise power over those particular women. And implicitly they are doing the same to the entire gender, as naked photographs and pictures of men are generally not used against males. The fact that this material is used as a means to instill fear or dominance over one gender suggests that the female body is shameful, slutty, disgusting, always sexual, always titillating, an object, and a weapon that can be used against womankind.

This is why you get image boards with descriptions like, This board is for posting pictures and videos that girls sent to their BF meant just for them. Or ones that deal in recounting tales about “groping sluts”. Or other boards with posts like this:

So I got one of those sweet usb spy pen cameras (link: I’ve taken this out, but fuck – there are websites selling items to help men victimize women?) but can’t come up with any creative ways to use it out and about.

I’ve thought of maybe putting it in my pants pocket and going into dressing rooms and leaving my pants on the ground while I “change,” letting the pen see into the room next to me. But do you guys have any better ideas?

Voyeurism, rape, molestation, and many other crimes against women are not about sex. They’re not about appreciating or lusting after a very narrow standard of beauty, either (see: being raped and/or stalked is not a compliment). While individual upskirters, rapists, etc. may “get off” on the physicality of the women involved, they bring dominance and power into the equation in order to enhance what pleasure they take in their crimes. And often enough—like in the case of Revenge Pornography—the infraction is only about dominance and power.

*If not, then I apparently have a peeping tom of my own who likes semi-fat women. But yes, I doubt it.

Brown bodies, white bodies, chocolate bodies…

As I mentioned in my last post, something I’ve been doing during my current trip back to India is comparing the use of body types in Indian advertising to its usage in US advertising. It’s quite possible that this is only an impression that I’m getting and not fully accurate, but I get the sense that there are a wider range of body types which are easily visible on Indian television ads (that’s mostly what I’m focusing on). The tall, the short, the fat, the thin, the young, the old, and everything in between, are visible in TV advertising. Some of it is based on playing for laughs, admittedly, especially for the particularly disproportionate, but that’s a relative minority. Part of the reason I also notice this is because it wasn’t the trend some two decades ago. The vast majority of advertising was done by models who didn’t look like average men and women. But at some point there was a significant movement towards having realistic people in ads, with the idea presumably being to use people whom the viewer could identify with. So even though there are the requisite ads with celebrities (esp. cricketers and movie stars, since they are loved/worshipped in India) and the ones with models, there are also tons of ads with people of every size and shape, just like you would see on the street outside your door.

A subtler treatment/approach to body images in advertising, I think, is also present in the way that certain subjects are presented here, which stand in stark contrast to the US. Something I’ve often noted in US advertising is the proliferation of references to issues of weight. Food ads will feature slim, usually young, people and often refer to how non-fattening the advertised food is. Whereas in India, such ads will usually focus on how tasty and healthy the food is, with a possible (and comparatively rare) reference to it being non-fattening. For example, just about every cooking oil ad (which we have a lot of, for some reason) is all about how it’s low-cholesterol and tasty, with nary a reference to being fattening. An ad for Amul butter I saw yesterday criticized cooking with oil on eight grounds, only one of which was that it was fattening (the others focused on issues of health and taste). This shows up elsewhere too. There are tons of gyms all over Calcutta now, but the majority of them advertise as health clubs and talk about improving health and fitness, with a few also bringing up issues of size and weight. Which is totally an approach I can get behind. What matters where the body is concerned is fitness and health, not size (or appearance, but that’s a rant for another day), and being focused on the former is much, much … well, healthier.

Two types of food ads just encapsulate the kind of differences I’m noting here, namely ads for ice cream and chocolate. I barely see US ads for ice cream, with only a few more for chocolate, and there are certain very evident trends with them. They’re marketed mainly towards women, with an emphasis on how sinfully delicious they are and how any of them is particularly enjoyable since it’s a rare and almost forbidden treat. Whereas Indian ice-cream and chocolate ads are all about how good they taste and how much one would enjoy them. And there’s no gender distinction to them, with men and women being shown enjoying them equally, swallowing giant dollops of ice cream and eating chocolate bars the size of their faces. Which, speaking as someone who generally dislikes desserts but thoroughly enjoys my ice cream and my chocolate*, is exactly the way it should be. Ice cream and chocolate – or food, for that matter – shouldn’t be about shame, and it damn well shouldn’t be gendered. It should be about stuffing yourself till you want to pop.**

I should add my usual caveat that Indian advertising isn’t universally more positive than the American variety***. There are lots of messages which could be significantly improved, and many individual ads which are essentially dreck. One particular type, which almost doesn’t exist in the US, is the genre of ads to do with making yourself fairer. Partly as a result of the relatively recent colonial past here (the British having left India only 62 years ago), fairness is an important component of attractiveness in India. So there are a ton of ads which put forth horrible messages about how one’s attractiveness is hugely dependent on one’s complexion. For both men and women, though ads for women are more common in this area. Interestingly, as Amber noted to me, many – if not most – of these ads are for products marketed by foreign companies in India.

Nevertheless, while there’s a lot of scope for improvement, Indian advertising isn’t doing too badly. And it just serves to underline again, as my last couple of posts are emphasizing, what sort of scope there is for improving advertising in the US. Maybe someday I’ll see an ad there where men and women are shown to be able to sit down together to happily and openly eat a chocolate. Who knows? Either way, that reminds me that I need to go eat some chocolate too. Anyone who believes chocolate is only for women is a moron … and will have to pry my Ferrero Rocher from my cold, dead hands!

* And being a horribly thin bastard, according to Amber.
** I’m also a fatty on the inside.
*** Even if I did see one last night where a young woman worried about pregnancy popped a birth control pill, and then went dancing off to a party with her boyfriends and girlfriends all chorusing that now they had “No tension!” An ad like that would never fly in the US, which is a pity, since so many conservative heads would explode if it were aired.

EA Games Values Heteronormativity and Pawing at Women

Win a night with TWO hot girls by objectifying the booth babes!

For anyone who’d rather not click the link, the basic gist of the contest is this:

1. Commit acts of lust
Take photos with us or any booth babe.

2. Prove it
(addresses of Twitter, facebook, email for the contest to send pics to)

3. Repeat
Find more babes for more chances to win

One handpicked winner gets dinner and a sinful night with TWO hot girls, a limo service, paparazzi, and a chest full of booty.

This is insulting to the female demographic and hopefully insulting to most men, since the contest basically works off the assumption that most men are mindless Neanderthals. My biggest issue with this contest, however, is the fact that it’s almost certainly going to encourage some asshat (or more) to inappropriately touch the female models (the “booth babes”) working at the convention, in the name of committing a “creative” act of lust. Wonderful.

Contests like these reinforce Geek Culture as a male-only space. Not only is this contest (and the presence of the female models) catering to the heterosexual man, but it’s also reinforcing the idea that it’s okay to paw at women and that women aren’t a worthwhile part of the demographic.

Are men inherently attracted to gaming, or is the culture surrounding gaming (effectively making the games themselves often have only a male PC, or a ridiculously sexualized female PC) that drives women away? I think you know my answer.

Shakesville on EA’s contest.

It’s About Power, Part I

For the record, this post is possibly triggering: it deals with voyeurism and non-consensual exploitation of the female body.

The recent exploitation of poor Erin Andrews has generated a lot of feminist outrage, and rightly so. While the event itself is horrible enough, many news outlets have decided to partake in victim blaming, claiming that Andrews brought this upon herself by being too uptight by never previously posing nude and/or by being too sexy in a male dominated field. Yeah, really.

A lot of the feminist critiques I have read so far have largely been about Andrews’ history of being sexually objectified, especially because she is a female working in sports reporting. There is no doubt about that. Whether females are playing sports or reporting them, their attractiveness is treated as being more important than their skills. ( Did you know that Serena Wlliams is a fatty? And if she weren’t so fat and also more attractive, she’d win more Grand Slams?) But while I think her involvement in sports is a contributing factor to the exploitation and unsavory attitudes regarding the video, we are often missing an important piece of the puzzle: the appeal of voyeurism, especially in the age of the Internet, is primarily responsible for this incident. Because whether or not she was a well known sports reporter, someone, without Andrews’ consent, could have just easily taken a video or photograph of her naked.

Would people be less interested if she wasn’t semi-famous? Of course. But it’s worth pointing out that she could belong to any profession that would place her in the public eye and still get this kind of treatment. Her profession is immaterial. In this case, what’s most important is that she’s a semi-famous, respectable woman who has never previously posed nude. What’s almost equally as important is that she’s a woman who wasn’t aware that a) she was being filmed without her consent, and b) that this video was being viewed by people without her consent.

This isn’t an isolated incident. It isn’t even an incident that occurs mostly with famous women. Voyeurism and peeping toms have been a problem for a long time now, and what happened to Erin Andrews is very much an extension of another pre-existing, sexist issue: people, most of them men, get off on posting and viewing videos and pictures of women without their consent or knowledge. Taking these pictures or videos of women without their knowledge is even better, but not necessary—they are violated either way.

There is one particular site I know of which is dedicated to posting pictures of women, teenage girls, and children. Here are some of the titles of these boards, all of which were labeled NSFW:

“Scene Sluts by State,” “Young Girls With Big Tits,” “Upskirt,” “Post your wife pic on here,” “wivesandgfs,” “Facebook Finds,” “Girls Getting Groped,” “Not Just for Her BF,” “Sleeping Passed Out Girls,” and “Teen Twins”.

Here are some of the descriptions for the boards, which all involve posting NSFW pictures, descriptions, and “stories”:

“post your girlfriends and wives here, past and present”
“A place for people to share the pics they have of people they know. For more fun, share their names”
“post your wife on here and what city or airport she might be in when on the road”
“Board for pics, vids and stories about groping girls. Drunk girls, crowds, cum on girls”
“This board is for posting pictures and videos that girls sent to their BF meant just for them”
“What would you do to these girls? Post photos and comment on others”

In many cases, it’s fairly obvious that the appeal for people visiting such places is that the women generally did not consent to these pictures or videos to either be taken or shared. The Internet makes the situation a lot worse and more damaging, as it becomes possible for a pervert to share that picture with hoards of individuals that get off on these types of images. It also becomes possible for someone who has been violated in such a way to stumble upon these pictures or videos.

Having a video or picture distributed on the Internet without one’s consent can happen to anyone. It happened to Erin Andrews. But it has also happened to many individuals who aren’t at all famous, like the women and girls who are displayed on that site for a mass of moronic, vile predators to see.

Evo-Psych Can Suck It, or: Why Advertising Shouldn’t Be So Sexist

Reading Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead got me thinking a lot about the role of advertising and marketing in American society, and particularly how it intersects with gaming and geek culture. While Rand is quite far from being a feminist in any sense of the word, some of the philosophies in The Fountainhead find some applicability in today’s world—if you agree that the collective consciousness of society tends to get what it deserves, anyway—and explain, to some extent, certain issues that mediate and/or reinforce sexism, gender binaries, and especially shitty advertising.

Sadly, society—as a collective—is dumb. So dumb, in fact, that I really doubt advertising/marketing strategies work as simplistically as some people* seem to think. In my opinion, Rand was onto something in her aforementioned novel when she described people essentially buying something, or buying into something, because everyone else is doing it, because traditions are arbitrarily upheld, and because… well, it’s just easier to be uncritical and go with the flow, to have no sense of “self” and define one’s likes and dislikes on the basis of what we think we should like. So while I really wanted to gouge my eyes out while reading The Fountainhead, I did find some common ground with a vile, Capitalist loving, woman hating misogynist—society really does lack integrity.

So then, how does the advertising and marketing of geek and/or gamer related things figure into this? There have been many discussions on forums I frequent about both gender disparity within certain products (like D&D modules or miniatures, in shows) and misogynistic and/or overly sexualized representations of women, especially in advertising and artwork. And a distressing amount of people argue that this is fine because Geek Culture is male-centric. The advertising is successful and should not change in order to suit, or at least not offend, the female demographic. The products themselves, again due to the male audience, do not need to normalize the presence, appearance, etc. of females. Even though a fantasy or futuristic world would be drastically different from the one we live in now, hyper-masculinity and patriarchal socio-economic structures would nonetheless exist—because it’s attractive to a market that is assumed to be mostly male.

The status quo, it ends up seeming, is worth maintaining simply because it works.

And, on its own, maintaining something because it works is okay. It’s just that there are circumstances or situations in which we shouldn’t keep doing something because we’ve been doing it for the past x years. When a certain practice is exclusionary and implicitly sexist, that practice should change. This is why I think a lot of geek/gamer oriented advertising, products, and etc. need to find new strategies and strive towards egalitarianism.

Like I’ve mentioned before in this blog, the call for gender equity is often met by the assertion that marketing is marketing and companies are just trying to sell shit. While that’s true, there is no most effective way to advertise, market or construct a product. When it comes to geek activities, there are other options besides appealing to the carnal desires of straight men. And it’s probably worth pointing out that these other options include methods that don’t other and/or exclude gay men and women.

Now here’s why the argument, “BUT THIS IS THE MAIN MARKET, HOW CAN WE IGNORE THAT WAHHHH” is not necessarily true. I understand that a lot of heterosexual men don’t mind looking at a conventionally attractive, scantily clad woman**—but I also understand that we, as in men and women of any sexual orientation, are not Neanderthals. Seriously. World of Warcraft, to use one example, would have just as many players if it didn’t have sexualized images of women on its loading screens. They’d have just as many players if they decided to rework the sexually suggestive dances for the females of particular races (for instance, the Night Elf). Comic books would sell just as well with or without giving female super heroines ridiculous proportions and “sexy,” impractical costumes. If D&D’s various modules and setting equally represented the genders numerically—and better yet, gave as many women NPCs important jobs/roles as male NPCs—the product would still sell. (Seriously. Even though some people took issue with Wizards of the Coast’s alternating usage of male and female pronouns in the 3e books, it still sold a lot of damn copies.) It is tradition and habit, not necessarily effectiveness (especially not on its own), which keep exclusionary marketing alive.

On a related note, assuming that geeky things are a male-only or mostly male space just reinforces these activities being… well, treated as a mostly male space. It’s not that D&D, World of Warcraft, and Halo inherently appeal to men. The appeal is socially constructed—through stuff like advertising and marketing, both within and outside geek related endeavors—and reinforced by sexist attitudes that alienate others. If the space isn’t welcoming to the “other” sex, then naturally less females are going to participate.

And if my assumptions are utterly wrong—if appealing to heterosexual men’s most basic of urges, and thusly excluding women and homosexual men, will result in a significant amount of more sales—then, well, show me to the nearest cliff. Because society is obviously doomed.

*People on the Internet. Yes, I know. It is quite academic of me to cite the Internet at large as a source.
**How that pained me to type.

Thoughts From Abroad II: Why Body-Image is Better with Biryani

Another of the subjects which Amber and I have discussed ad nauseam (as we do most of our subjects) in India, narrowly edging out our daily pontificating on the various flavors of biryani or the relative merits of the druid in D&D vis-à-vis the druid in WoW, is the manner in which human bodies, especially female ones, tend to be viewed here in India (especially in comparison/contrast to the USA). We also discuss why my blog posts, or anything else I write for that matter, tend to start with hugely convoluted sentences with far too many clauses, but that’s a discussion for another day. Back to the subject, I think there are a few elements of the body portrayal/perception here which I think are noteworthy.

For one, we’ve been discussing how people here, especially women, tend to have less extreme body sizes than in the USA. While there are a fair number of skinny women and quite a few really fat women too, few of them will be as painfully thin as the girls one commonly sees in the USA (esp. on college campuses, such as Temple) and few – if any – can match up to the size that fat people in the USA can attain. What is relatively common in India, or at least in Kolkata (since we’ve been in this city since we arrived), is to have people in the intermediate position, possessing a little bit of a gut and some well-distributed flesh on their frames. Much of that is obviously genetic and cultural, since Bengalis (the primary community in Kolkata, which is the capital of West Bengal) tend to be among the shorter Indian communities and have rice as a staple in their meals, which tends towards developing a bit of a gut which is easily noticeable on a short frame.

Partly related to this is the fact that clothing in India tends to be much more flattering to non-skinny people than most American apparel. For example, the two most popular Indian (i.e. not skirts or jeans or pants, all of which came here from the West) garments for women are the sari and the even-more-ubiquitous salwar kameez. The sari, depending on how you wear it, can cover a very large part of the anatomy (or, leave a fair bit bare, if you want to be more daring), usually in attractive folds of cloth which draw attention to themselves rather than to the form underneath. The salwar kameez is arguably even more versatile, since it is a three piece garment (if you include the dupatta/chunni, like a long scarf, which most people wear with it) and there’s a wide variance in the lengths and widths of each part in a given set. Both salwar and kameez, since neither of them is really form-fitting unless in the absolute (and incredibly rare) tightest of versions, cater easily to all body types and are capable of garbing them in very attractive fashion. What’s more, it’s an extremely practical garment since it’s loose and comfortable, with the fact that it usually extends from wrist to ankle but can be of any thickness allowing it to be usable in most climates (esp. the tropical ones but elsewhere too). And both sari and salwar kameez both cater to more body types and make it harder to indulge in fat-shaming than most American clothing.

An interesting element of the comparative paucity of fat-shaming in India is the fact that people will happily and regularly comment on each other’s size, fatness/thinness, etc. in ways that would never be done in the USA. When someone sees you after a long time, it’s very common for them to say, “Oh my god, how much weight you’ve put on” or “How thin you’ve become,” and both of them are likely to be criticisms. I can, in contrast, barely recall anyone in the USA criticizing someone else openly and to their face for being thin. The fact that the above does happen in India doesn’t mean that issues of body size/weight don’t exist here. It does, however, indicate that being fat isn’t seen as anywhere near as much of a deplorable state, and it also shows that people are just less self-conscious about their bodies than is common in the USA.

As always, the above elements are heavily mediated in India by social class and whether you’re dealing with urban/rural settings. For example, there is almost complete absence of fat-shaming among the genuinely poorer people in India. After all, when someone has a tough time putting food on the table (or even owning a table), nobody’s going to tell them that there’s anything wrong with having a few extra pounds on them. And when high amounts of poverty or a lack of education are problems you’re dealing with, you don’t have time to worry about body shape. I doubt, for example, that any of the many servants I’ve had and the poor people I’ve known have ever had an eating disorder. That would, in a strange way, be a luxury they’ve never had. They have much bigger issues to worry about.

In short, I’m not trying to say that India is unilaterally more enlightened or progressive than the USA in this regard. What I’m indicating – and noticing even more than usual on this trip – is that India’s specific social, cultural, economic, historical and other realities make it ironically more progressive than the USA in certain areas. And serve to indicate that the sort of body image issues which people in the USA have to grapple with daily and consider a part of their lives are neither necessary nor rational. They are simply a cultural aberration.

And speaking of cultural aberrations, I need to say something about the use of body images in advertising here in India, which is drastically different from US advertising practices. But this is long enough so I need to save that for another day. Watch this space…

Selling Our Bodies

I noticed the Civony/Evony ads on various gaming sites, especially on EnWorld. Here is a decent article about the ads and their progressive sexitude.

One of the comments put it brilliantly: this isn’t sex they’re selling, it’s women’s bodies. Of course, the female body being treated as a commodity is nothing new. In fact, it’s prevalent in advertisements targeting men and women. But there is something quite unpleasant about a woman kneeling, her breasts nearly completely bare, and a sword poised at her chest. Not only is it overtly sexual, alienating potential female players, and appealing to straight men interested in fantasy porn – the company is also combining sex and violence (violence which is furthermore signified by a phallic symbol) together in order to sell a product. Ugh, many times over.

It’s quite silly to defend this type of advertisement by saying “sex sells” or “well, obviously it’s working”. So what? Shouldn’t we be striving for something better?

Thoughts From Abroad

Amber and I are having a whale of a time in India, and not just because she tends to come to the room after a big meal (and there are a lot of those), stand in front of the mirror and go, “I’m a whale! A WHALE!!!” There’s lots of hanging out, tons of good food (at home and in various restaurants), a little touristy stuff, being waited on hand and foot by my mom and the servants, a number of good movies, some time spent with my friends here, a little shopping, and generally some very enjoyable relaxation. It’s a nice follow-up to a couple of very busy semesters, especially for Amber.

Of course, this being us, the holiday also includes lots of discussion about feminism, racism, gender issues, the recession, and other important things such as the merits of 3e D&D as opposed to 4e. With Amber very interested in multiculturalism (and me being very used to moving seamlessly between cultures), something we’re often noting and discussing here are the differences or similarities in the way some of the above subjects get treated and presented in India in comparison to the USA. Whether in the street signs or the clothing or the behavior of people on the street, or in the advertisements and programs on Indian television, or in Bollywood (Hindi) and Tollywood (Bengali) movies, or just the way my mother and her friends or the servants will speak and react to certain subjects, there’s a ton of things to notice. And while we’ve been here, there have been a couple of important legal and political issues happening, which adds to the material on the subject. For example, there’s a lot of discussion on the subject of reservation of parliamentary seats for women (which seems quite likely to occur) and only a couple days ago the Delhi High Court made a landmark decision which not only decriminalizes homosexuality (which a 150+ year old British-made law theoretically made illegal, even though the law had been repealed in England 50 years ago), but also substantially increases the possibility of legal redress against discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, caste, mental/physical disability, etc.

One of the interesting things we’ve both been noting is that there are many ways in which India actually seems more progressive than the USA. It’s not particularly surprising to me, since I had noticed and thought about this earlier, but I think it’s more of an eye-opener for Amber. And understandably so. On one hand, you have the US, the supposed bastion of Western advancement and progressiveness, heavily industrialized and forever claiming the moral high ground on social issues. And then you have India, barely past 60 years of independence from British rule, a third world country with huge problems in the realms of population, education and poverty. But a couple weeks ago, sitting here in Calcutta we saw a Hindi ad on primetime TV for the morning-after pill (which has been showing up regularly ever since). The ad showed a weeping young woman, possibly a teenager, being taken to an abortion clinic by her sister, and then cut to a picture with the pill’s name and a voice-over saying, “It’s better to end a pregnancy than get an abortion, isn’t it?” Not only has such an ad never showed up on US television, but I’m a little doubtful that if it did it could draw a distinction between ending a pregnancy and abortion and avoid implying that either of them is murder. And did I mention that India has tons of reliable abortion clinics, many of them partially or fully funded by the state, which provide cheap abortions, sterilization and other pregnancy-related services to people who need them, without protesters hanging around outside and “abortion doctors” having to fear being shot by a moron?

That’s just one specific example, of course, but there are dozens more that I can think of at any moment. My mom and Amber and I were talking yesterday about how ironic it is that many people, both men and women, would argue that the USA has gender equality. But the US has never had a female president, while India has had a female president as well as a prime minister (the latter being the leader of the country), and elected another woman only a few years ago in Sonia Gandhi, who decided not to take the post of prime minister but handed it to our current PM and is leader of the ruling party in Parliament instead. Sri Lanka has had a female head of state. Bangladesh (multiple times) and Pakistan, both of which are Muslim states with all sorts of gender inequalities, have both had female heads of state too. Strangely ironic, I think.

The reasons why such situations and incidents, where supposedly backwards nations are more socially progressive than the USA, occur are manifold. But I think Amber has a good point about one important reason being that people in the more obviously progressive nation can pretend (and, of course, sincerely – if erroneously – believe) that social problems have been dealt with and are no longer an issue, whereas people in places like India don’t have that luxury (and yes, idiocy is often a luxury). If you live in India, it’s literally impossible for someone with a mostly-functional brain to think that gender equality has been achieved, that wealth is equitably distributed in the country, that racism/classism/casteism is nonexistent, that people are not forced into certain roles and debarred from advancement due to the circumstances of their birth, etc. And so, people will always be working to address and deal with such issues, while those who choose not to will rarely stand in the way of such efforts. In the USA, however, it is much easier to claim that, for example, racism and sexism are not a problem.

Perhaps the above situations are somewhat inevitable. When the problems are so big that you can’t ignore them, one has to address them, whereas when they are partly dealt with one can sometimes avoid admitting to their existence. But I like to think that’s not the case. Countries like India can certainly do better, and are slowly doing so. A country like the USA, in a different way, very definitely can do better too. Unfortunately, it is – in my opinion – doing so much too slowly.

Excuses & WTF Moments

Shil and I are taking a long holiday in India (perhaps I’ll write about some of my observations), so writing for Feminist Geeks has been put on the back burner. I’ve noticed that we’ve been getting a lot of hits lately, however (from MetaFilter, apparently?) so welcome, folks. Thanks to everyone who’s visiting, and please check out some of our previous content as well as our links.

Also, the fact that this month has been unusually caustic towards female geeks hasn’t gone unnoticed. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, please check Shakesville’s post on recent geek/gamer related sexism.

Words Mean STUFF and Other Self-Evident Truths: “Geek”

Unlike Shil, I do not proudly call myself a geek. If I do call myself a geek, I say it with a tinge of shame and discomfort in my voice and in my heart.

You may or may not be thinking, why is that? Fortunately, the answer is relatively simple: deeming one’s self a geek is subscribing to geek culture, and geek culture is often very misogynistic, racist, ableist, homophobic and transphobic. Not only that, but areas of geekdom that have become more egalitarian – like roleplaying – are accompanied by an unfortunate history of bigotry. In the short time I have graced this earth, I’ve seen lots of people complain about how society at large perceives geeks without acknowledging the exclusivity of “geek culture” as it exists in the USA: historically and today, it was/is a predominately white, cisgender, heterosexual, and male domain*.

While (mostly white) women are participating more than ever in geeky activities – like watching anime, LARPing, videogames, writing/reading fanfic, etc. – there is also a line drawn in the sand which women are not expected or encouraged to cross. I have read and heard many times that playing D&D or having a LAN party (playing World of Warcraft, Halo, Counter Strike, etc.) is supposed to be like a boy’s night out. And sometimes these statements are followed up with something like “men are BIOLOGICALLY inclined to like things like D&D and WoW a lot more” or “I don’t care if women go out together and shop**” or something equally infuriating.

I do not appreciate that there is a very clear distinction between what people consider proper for female geeks. When I mention that I’m a geek, the conclusions other people draw are significantly different from what conclusions people would draw from Shil calling himself a geek. Moreover, the fact that I’ve been drawn into traditionally masculine activities (uh, because dice rolling or killing pixels is obviously an intrinsic aspect of a man’s biology) by various boyfriends is met with a great amount of distaste. I am a “gamer’s girlfriend”—not a true gamer, apparently. And at the same time, people will automatically assume that, as a woman, I am only playing because I have a boyfriend who also plays. When it comes to D&D, that’s true. With WoW, that is not true. Not so surprisingly, in both cases, it doesn’t really fucking matter that I am with or without a boyfriend! Where both are concerned, I am a valid participant. So are the many other women like me.

If not that (or in addition to that), women get treated as aberrations when they participate in “male geek” activities. The boys’ club aspect reminds us that we are not invited. When disproportionate representation of gender comes up—in videogames, tabletop minis, adventures, or modules—the call for rectification is viciously silenced by the assertion that women are a niche part of the market, too small to consider or take seriously. Well, except once in awhile, when companies like Wizards of the Coast decide to insult women interested in gaming. Others bemoan the presence of female gamers “disrupting” their sessions, despite citing that the problem actually has to do with the way geek men react to female players. Sexism is rampant in videogame stores and gaming shops: men assume a girl is a) interested in playful Wii games, b) wants Sparklepony 2020 or the newest Sims Expansion, c) is buying something for their boyfriend, and d) *insert other gendered shit here*.

Quite frankly, I do not want to be a part of that.

What keeps me using the word, however—especially in conjunction with “feminist” or “socially conscious”—is that I want it to mean something different. Something better. There is something fundamentally beautiful about being able to unleash the imagination, to escape (if for only a moment) reality***. There is something wonderful about how the genre has often challenged the status quo while giving other individuals an escape: Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia Butler, Star Trek (considering the time period), and Battlestar Galactica’s reimaging are all stunning examples of people or things that have shown the potential of fantasy and science-fiction. The problem is that many others seem to hang onto the horrible tradition I’ve described above, and without acknowledging or caring about the issues with geek stuff in general (and especially gaming), we’re going to move forward very, very slowly.

In general, both the history and current situation of geek culture is pretty abysmal. But obviously there is something much better, inclusive, and worthwhile in sight.

*It reminds me of the Republican Party, especially considering how bent out of shape a lot of geeks get when you mess with “tradition”—like, you know, people getting upset about changing the phasers or the beaming thingy in the most recent Star Trek movie.
**Many women I know would be delighted to have men come along, whether or not they’re romantically involved.
***Some may think, “Well, it is an escapist fantasy—why should I be over thinking it?” Perhaps because the fantasy itself tends to be so exclusive. On sites like ENWorld, or in movies like Abrams’ Star Trek, women are reminded time and time again as their position as the other. Rather than being valid members of an already socially marginalized community, we are treated either poorly or as if we don’t exist. Race, too, is a major issue, especially in fiction, tabletop gaming and online gaming. Things need to be fun for everyone – not just for the white, heterosexual, cisgender and male audience.