A month ago Christina Hoff Sommers did a 6 and a half minute video for the American Enterprise Institute in which she took a sarcastically skeptical look at the criticisms of gamer culture. There’s a partial transcript on the page and I transcribed some of the rest for myself.
She started by saying that hard-core gamers, those who play more than 20 hours a week, are 7 to 1 male to female.
But are video games rife with sexism? Do they promote a culture of misogyny and violence that must be dismantled? My answer is no. As I looked into the literature on gaming, I discovered that gamers make a lot of people nervous. Not only are most of them male—but the games they like tend to be action-packed, competitive, and often violent.
But obviously that’s not in any way a problem, as we can tell by noticing how very peaceful and free of violence the US is*. Everything is already perfect exactly as it is, so there’s no need for anyone to think about possible problems with gaming, or anything else. The only people who ought to be doing that kind of thing, in fact, are people who do it at the behest of and on the payroll of the American Enterprise Institute.
But now, gamers are dealing with a new army of critics: gender activists and hipsters with degrees in cultural studies. These critics are concerned that gaming is a largely hetero-patriachal capitalist pursuit. Why isn’t gaming more inclusive? Why must there always be male heroes? Why are the few females always portrayed as either Damsels in distress or sex objects? These critics have made some useful points about “sexist tropes and narratives.” But they ignore the fact that the world of gaming has become more inclusive. There are games that fit a vast array of preferences, and games with responsibly proportioned and appropriately garbed female protagonists. Yet the video game gender police have become so harsh and intolerant – relentless – many of them want more than women on both sides of the video screen – they want the male video game culture to die.[little laugh]
I wonder if that’s an attempt to deflect attention from the people who threaten the critics, by pretending that the critics too want someone or something to die. Not very nice if so.
Male gamers, as a group, do evince a strong a preference for games with male heroes and sexy women. Could that be because they are – uh [quick eye roll] male? There is no evidence that these games are making males racist, misogynist, or homophobic. In fact, all the data we have suggests that millennial males—born and raised in video game nation—are far less prone to these prejudices than previous generations.
All the data? I doubt that. Misogyny is too prevalent and hip and fashionable for that. It’s coming from somewhere.
But recently two feminist critics received and publicized death threats. Now, no one knows who sent them, there are millions of gamers, and I’m sure they include a few sociopaths, if it was indeed gamers who sent the threats. But many of the new culture critics have seized on the emails as a [sarcasm] sure sign of patriarchal pathology at the heart of gamer culture. According to one academic pontificator [sarcastic shaking of head], “what we are seeing is the end of gamers, and the viciousness that accompanies the death of an identity.” [sarcastic little laugh] Well I have spent the last few weeks looking into the gamer culture, talking to gamers, looking at the data – I don’t see pathology, or imminent death. What I see is a lively, smart, creative subculture…”
That’s a pretty callous dismissal of the death threats. She could have used the opportunity to speak out forcefully against them, but instead she chose to hint that maybe they were fake.
Her shtick these days seems to be just to pounce on anything feminists do in order to make fun of it. There are some feminist projects that I too think need opposing, like the ones that claim logic and science are more of a guy thing. But jeering at pretty much everything is a questionable kind of scholarship.
*I’m assuming that she’s talking about US gamers here, given that she’s doing this for the American Enterprise Institute, which doesn’t mean Mexico and Canada, much less Brazil and Peru.)
Wow, the AEI has been doing some hard hitting journalism lately. First, casting doubt on climate change (offering $10,000 ‘incentives’ for scientists to come out against the IPCC report in 2006), and now stirring up the controversy over whether or not death threats to women are a good thing. Let’s hope they invite us to ‘teach the controversy’ of evolution next.
Gamergate aholes threaten to kill feminists. Feminists threaten to kill gaming. See, both sides do it!!1!
Wow, is she awful….
Dear sweet FSM, the NRA does a better job of sounding more sincere when a gunman shoots a bunch of people.
It also seems kinda dumb to compare males of this generation to males of a previous generation to measure the effect of games on misogyny. Shouldn’t it be males who play games vs males of the same generation who don’t?
those who play more than 20 hours a week, are 7 to 1 male to female
Very doubtful. Unless she’s decided to arbitrarily not classify Words With Friends, Farmville, Scrabble, etc. as games. Or perhaps she’s not classifying World of Warcraft as a game, or something. With a 60% male/40% female breakdown, and 6 million player accounts, that’s going to pop her 7:1 statistic right there. Otherwise, we must just say [CITATION NEEDED]
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, defining “hard core gamers” is going to be really difficult unless you define it as “gamers that make my argument seem plausible.” Because nearly 100% of those gamers do, indeed, support her argument. Under other definitions of “hard core gamer” – not so much.
Not only are most of them male—but the games they like tend to be action-packed, competitive, and often violent.
Almost 50% of gamers are women. And “action-packed” “competitive” and “violent” are very subjective terms that I would expect a social scientist would bracket more carefully. For example, Words With Friends is competitive. I’m not sure about “action packed” but then I hang out with weirdos that play World of Warcraft mostly to socialize in guild chat, with an occasional burst of raiding or questing. I know those are anecdotes but since she’s not citing any studies, I suspect my anecdotes are better than her [CITATION NEEDED]
But now, gamers are dealing with a new army of critics: gender activists and hipsters with degrees in cultural studies.
“Gender activists” were pointing out the problems with Lara Croft’s shelf boob and ridiculous proportions about ten minutes after it released, in 1996. This is nothing recent. And, what does she think – that Anita Sarkeesian is the first person to point out the stupid objectification of women in Duke Nukem? That was also 1996; I don’t think so. In fact I remember quite distinctly deciding to stick to Doom because if I’m gonna chainsaw demons I really don’t need a little pixellated T&A thrown at me to distract me.
In 2005, no less a castrating feminist than Hillary Clinton was calling for Congress to investigate sexualized violence in Grand Theft Auto.
The point is not that these questions are easy to answer, it’s that she’s pretending that these questions are only, just now, being asked which is complete and utter bullshit.
These critics have made some useful points about “sexist tropes and narratives.” But they ignore the fact that the world of gaming has become more inclusive.
Oddly, it’s as if Sommers is also trying to ignore the fact that gaming has become more inclusive – by cooking up a definition of “hard core gamers” that doesn’t match the demographics of gaming today.
if it was indeed gamers who sent the threats
What, are you fucking kidding me? It was probably knitters who sent the threats. Yeah! That’s it!
Well at least the “non-hipster” is right about something.
She said:
I read:
I also really really really hate it when someone glibly says “I’ve been studying the problem for several weeks, and have talked to some people…” then proceeds to pontificate as if they are anything but a complete newb. As someone who’s been gaming since 1970 (seriously and constantly since 1975) I think my experience trumps her several weeks.
I’m not convinced there’s a strong relationship between the culture of violence in the U. S. and violent games. I can’t believe that all of Canada and Western Europe are playing nothing but Words With Friends. But that isn’t really the point of your post (and I don’t have data here, I’m just making assumptions! dangerous…).
The bit about casting doubt on the death threats is a really nasty piece of work. What does she think that asshole did to get the Utah talk shut down — send flowers to Ms. Sarkeesian???
But the thing that puzzles me is her purpose in saying these things. Who’s paying? Is it video game manufacturers, conservatives who want to promote anti-feminism, ??? I suppose I’m being horribly cynical in taking this tack, but it seems to me like an approach that’s so anti-fact needs to have some money behind it.
Karen.
Hoff Summers works for/with the American Enterprise Institute. There’s your money right there. They’ve already got enough folks “working” on climate change denial and other our-favourite-industries-at-any-cost topics. She’s just one of their culture warriors.
This has been posted on FTB before I think, but it’s worth reposting, it’s a brilliant, fun, rebuttal (it also contains a trigger warning for content as it contrasts her “they don’t care about your gender” claim with typically horrible/violent tweets :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K4s7cV4Us4
Also, regarding the point about “they want the … culture to die”: that is indeed way to attack critics for wishing death upon gamers, usually by twisting the words in positive, inclusive articles like Leigh Alexander’s “Gamers are over” article and many that followed. Here is a review of how many of those actually say die/death and in what context:
http://pixietalksgamergate.wordpress.com/gamers-are-dead-article-analysis/
This is worth sharing here:
I’m trying to dig up the study she cited, too…
@ 9 Karen Locke
Actually, bashing feminism has been her shtick for over 20 years. ‘Gamergate’ is just the latest anti-feminist bandwagon to jump on.
My son is a gamer, and frequently uses a female avatar in his gaming. He would not believe CHS. Simply using a female avatar makes him a target for misogyny. He is disgusted with the gaming world he loves because of their treatment of women.
I think the part that makes me most angry, outside of the abuse and harassment, is the idea that the worst and most reactionary assholes are somehow the only real gamers and that everyone else is an unfair intruder on their space. Sorry, CHS… I know that YOU’RE not a gamer, but I am. Been playing games at least as long as she’s been an anti-feminist serving the right-wing cause.
Interesting point. It’s parallel to the idea that Kenan Malik pointed out, that the only “real” Muslim is one who is offended by the Danish cartoons, and a self-described Muslim who says “I’m not offended by the Danish cartoons” simply isn’t a real Muslim.
There’s this really weird thing where “real gamer” is now equated with “shitty sexist regressive asshole”… sort of like where “real skeptic” now equals the same thing? It ignores the majority of us who have been involved for years/decades and are also NOT terrible people.
Yeah, the framing you see in a lot of places that it’s “gamers vs critics” seriously misrepresents the situation. Everyone I know who’s talking about what a load of crap gamergate is is someone who plays and loves games, and wishes the industry and its products were better and could be enjoyed and shared more widely. Of course, “gamers who can’t handle criticism vs gamers who want to actually examine and improve games and gaming” makes the real situation too clear and undermines the conflict narrative.
Sarcastic Shaking of Head is what I’m going to call my band.
Either that or Hipsters With Degrees In Cultural Studies. I can’t decide.