Part II Gaming Communities : Girls and Women as Players.
Chapter 5 Page 66. Body, Space and gendered gaming experiences: A cultural geography of homes, cybercafes and dormitories.
In this chapter, the editor 'Holin Lin' talks about the cultural differences between gender roles within both the gaming community and domestic life. In particular, the genre of MMO (massive multi player online) is focused as the subject game and how it needs to make a more suitable space for females to play.
Although this was specifically aimed towards the Taiwanese way of social gaming, it was interesting to see how the domestic roles of a female are very traditional even within the gaming community. They're are subject to obeying gender based rules, such as household chores and the different parental laws. Within the various sub-chapters, the author analyzes the different spaces in which girls are restricted to enjoying online games socially. The main space topics consist of domestic, cybercafes and dormitories. However, I began to find through reading the chapter, that girls in Taiwan have little space to have any enjoyment in any environment!. This is because of law and parental regulations that have been laid out for them, such as age restrictions and general experiences. Each space has it's own reason, for example within the home environment, a female must use a computer ideally for academic use and must only play online games depending on the parent's permission. This consists of the amount they play, how long for and at what time. However, in result of these regulations, a girl cannot find much enjoyment within playing, as they're next to no co-players or fighting for a turn with a sibling. All in all, this results to lack of freedom and space to actually enjoy an online game. More so less freedom for a female, as she has more domestic duties than a male character/player.
The Cybercafes in Taiwan are used to ideally bring online gamers to a space where they have little restrictions of how much time they play a game and what sort of game they play. Where they can discuss tactics, play with other people and ideally make new friends based on similar interests. However, in this sub chapter it was evident that a female finds little space to actually enjoy socially playing with others in this sort of environment. Again due to the lectures of their parents or from general experiences; Being subjected to a room full of strange men doesn't always appeal to a female and in doing so tends to stop them from going into these cafes. In the book the author states her personal experience ': the majority of the cybercafes i observed were smoky and noisy, their computer keyboards were usually sticky, and their bathrooms were often dirty' from this I can see why a domestic female would not want to enter one of these places, as it doesn't seem to represent a friendly atmosphere at all.
Within a college dormitory, i thought maybe a female here would have more chance to enjoy online games. Being away from parents, being older and around your own space surely meant you could enjoy games at your leisure? or also make new closer friends with similar interests? However, what I discovered is that girls in Taiwan are not so open to express their gaming hobbies on campus with dorm mates, as it seems to be frowned upon that 'game playing is for boys'. The author here really illiterates how boys react in dorms without the regulations of any superiors. They tend to invite one another to their rooms and play games loud until the early hours of the morning, with little consent to other dorm members etc. In result, this creates a bad response to the other students and makes the female online gamer not want to express themselves in a similar way. They're confined to playing quietly, with headphones at night and specialist keyboards that keep sound to a minimum. They even tend to feel guilty using facilities at early hours in the morning, in case it disrupted a fellow room mate. It seems apparent that girls are more courteous in Taiwan within online gaming than boys and tend to avoid socializing with them in case at caused any distributions with roommates or friends.
In the MMO society, role playing games are played more so than any other, especially in Taiwan as the subject culture. Here females feel less afraid to interact with strangers as they're not really submitting any personal identities to them. They express their characters with the use of 'avatar's in which are virtual representation of themselves within the online gaming world. It is here where the female gamer can be free and less worried about the social fears within the physical world. However, even online I do believe and can say from experience, that making female avatars brings attention to yourself whether good or bad. Boys tend to treat girls very differently than with other boys, for example they tend to help girls do certain tasks within a game, guide them or even give them valuable gifts to get their attention. Although there is no physical risks within an online game, males tend to act flirtatious by submitting personal details to girls to try and get 'dates' or also get them to reveal the true identities behind their avatars. They also tend to make female characters as they know being a girl will reap them rewards. This has a lot to do with how a boy treats a lady in a sense, being the superior provider.
It was interesting to see how the Taiwanese gaming community has a lot of traditional rules that restrict females to play in certain spaces more so than guys. Personally, many things in this chapter frustrated me, as I don't see the need for sexist judgments within games, but that has a lot to do with the culture I live in and how our gaming environments are more equal. With the tradition of female domestic roles, it is obvious why girls have little space to enjoy online gaming. In a sense within our country, there are some cases in which girls can still get treated this way, but it is becoming rarer as they're are becoming just as popular gamers as the boys.
Bibliography:
| Kafai, B Yasmin, Heeter, Carrie, Denner, Jill and Y.Sun, Jennifer. (2008) Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat. In: Body, Space, and Gendered Gaming Experiences: A Cultural Geography of Homes, Cybercafes, and Dormitories. THE MIT PRESS, pp.66-81. |
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