In this episode of Reappropriate: The Podcast, I am joined by the Ladies of the Roundtable (LORTNation.com, @LadiesRdTable) podcast — Carmen (@AskShrivasta), Nikki (@StarCitizenAA) and Pixxy (@MonsterMashP) to talk about feminism and female identity in the gamer and geek community; and, of course, #GamerGate (after the jump is a brief rundown of the latest developments in this hashtag).
You can check out the episode by streaming through YouTube above or downloading or playing the audio only version after the jump at the bottom of the post. For more episodes, you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel or subscribe to this podcast in the iTunes Store.
Next episode: James (@SnoopyJenkins) joins me once again, this time to discuss affirmative action and the now infamous Mismatch Theory used by conservatives to argue against the benefits of race-conscious college admissions policies for underrepresented minority students. We endeavour to answer the question: “Is Mismatch Theory just wrong, or both wrong and racist?” Tune in October 27th at 9pm EST to watch!
For those needing a little bit of background on #GamerGate, this is the article from Forbes cited by Nikki in the podcast (aside: I find the entire definition of feminism in this article foreign relative to current ideas in contemporary feminism — what the heck is a “bully feminist”? — but, that aside, the article gives a decent rundown of the particulars). This article by a Vice writer offers another rundown, and one that is more favourable towards female critics of GamerGate. Over the weekend, the latest salvo in #GamerGate involved death threats issued against game developer Brianna Wu, which included rape threats, death threats, and the publication of her home address. Also, relevant to the AAPI community, the tweets targeted Wu’s Asian American husband with your typical anti-Asian stereotypes of AAPI masculinity. This article provides more details and a screenshot of the tweets.
In this recent Reid Report interview, Wu and Eric Johnson of Recode discuss #GamerGate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnY17pgYwg#t=128
In addition to these specifics, more generally, this podcast cites the following statistics: current studies estimate that 48% of gamers are women. Yet, only 11% of game designers, and only 3% of game programmers, are women. In this podcast, we talk about efforts that the industry might take to improve these numbers, including looking outside of the mainstream to support independent developers of all races, genders and creeds.
I hope you enjoy this episode, which ended up being (I hope) a balanced take on the issue of female underrepresentation in the gaming industry, and which ultimately concludes in a plea for an industry to come together and focus on the qualities that make great games that can be enjoyed by all gamers.
