Feminist ethics and hobby gaming

Disclaimer:  This is not an article about political correctness.  I'm not telling anyone what to think or how to act, and if you have a problem with the notion of feminism in general, either you don't understand feminism, or you are a generally reprehensible human being.  Feminism is about social justice and equality for everyone.

It seems like the cultural dialogue has been shifting lately towards a greater awareness of the issues of systemic, casual misogyny that pervades many levels of our lives.  That statement might simply be a reflection of my own process of feminism-informed self-discovery, but I think a case can be made that it's bigger than that.  The issues surrounding reproductive rights and healthcare reform is one of the strongest catalysts for this change in dialogue, but there are other factors at work here as well.

Briefly, my own history with feminism started in college, but it wasn't until grad school that I actually studied it academically.  As an up-and-coming psychotherapist, one of my areas of inquiry was in feminist psychology and psychotherapy.  This discipline has less to do with women's minds specifically, and more to do with understanding of gender dynamics and their implications in relationships and societal structures.  I worked with a population of young adolescent males who were often survivors of abuse by male caregivers, and the tangled mat of misogynistic values that had taken root in their psyches was often deep and thick.  Recently, I've been taking a more sociological approach, rather than a psychological one, trying to understand the implications of gender dynamic in different cultural systems.

To a lot of gamer guys, myself included, women in gaming are seen as some kind of holy grail, and the universally spoken opinion would seem to be that we want more women as active participants in our hobbies.  There's a stronger female showing in role-playing games than in tabletop wargames, and addressing why that is probably warrants a few posts of its own.  But because I am male, and the population of this hobby is so overwhelmingly male, the main crux of this article is going to largely deal with what I perceive to be the attitudes of male hobby participants.

We want more women in gaming, but how welcoming are we, really?  How willing are we to examine our own attitudes and seriously reflect on the subtext we're conveying through action and word?  How willing are we to change our own minds about the thought patterns that give rise to these deeds and words?  Why do we want more women around in our hobby?

The sad fact that I've observed, both as a participant and a game store employee, is that a lot of guys' appreciation for a woman in the shop starts and ends right around chest-level.  If a pretty lady is in the store, guys get excited because boobs.  That's okay, that's reasonable, that's expected.  If she has a well-painted tyranid army, it's that much more exciting because now she has something in common with us, a shared interest that makes her conversationally accessible.  But it's startling how frequently the assessment stops right there, and the cognitive picture created of this woman is boobs and tyranids.  This is a form of objectification, and it is a type of casual misogyny.  It is not bothering to be open to the human potential of this person specifically because of their gender characteristics.  It is relegating them to a role in your life on a strictly hormonal level, rather than allowing your social dynamic to be informed by this person's thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or other social characteristics.

This is how women leave the hobby.  When they are at a tournament or pick-up game night, or otherwise just in the shop, they observe these attitudes in action.  They see guys talking to other guys about the hobby, and they find that their ability to participate in that conversation is limited by the men that listen with half an ear.  Or the men that listen insincerely, enjoying the attention of a woman without bothering to enjoy the content of the interaction.

As a psychologist, I learned that the amount of information we have to process in order to have even the most basic social interaction is absolutely staggering.  Gender figures into that quantity in profound ways; it is not simply one simple piece of data.  It is years and years of social information, absorbed and reprocessed by a constantly-active subconscious.  There is no way for your preconceived notions of gender (or race, culture, appearance, ability, etc) to NOT inform your social interactions, it's simply how our brains are wired.

The first and most simple step is to spend some time really thinking about how your own mind approaches gender issues.  Self-awareness and being willing to critically think about where you could stand to grow a bit is a useful personal exercise regardless.  If you're uncomfortable with a topic or idea, challenge yourself to determine why.

We share this hobby because it's something we love and enjoy.  The ultimate goal is pure, honest, innocent fun.  I believe that the noblest calling in the hobby is helping someone else deepen their enjoyment of this thing that they love to do, and helping to create a warm, welcoming environment for everyone is where that all starts.