investiGaming is a publication of the Serious Game Design group in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University, 2007-2009
This gateway is partially supported by grant 0631771 from the National Science Foundation.
The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent Michigan State University or the National Science Foundation.
Author: Jenkins, Henry
Date: 1998
Source: In From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins, Eds., MIT Press http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/gamegrrlz.html
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Synopsis:
A snapshot of the emerging subculture of female gamers from web pages in late 1997 and early 1998, called game girls.
Keywords:
book, chapter, Quake, pink games, gender stereotypes, editorial
Abstract:
If 1997 became the "year for girls," in the games industry, much as Brenda Laurel and others had predicted, then, by year's end, another set of voices were being heard who also claimed to speak for girls and also sought to address what they wanted from digital media. Webpages are appearing which reflect the still nascent game girls movement. The game girls are older than those being targeted by Purple Moon, Girl Games, and the others, and certainly more self-confident than those who are described in their audience research. They have never felt left out of the digital realm and they take pleasure in beating boys at their own games, sometimes using their own Gameboys. They don't want a "ROM of their own"; they simply want a chance to fight it out with the others. Their voices are 90s kinds of voices - affirmative of women's power, refusing to accept the constraints of stereotypes, not those generated by clueless men in the games industry or those generated by the girls game researchers. These female gamers are bluntly questioning the assumptions being made by the girls game movement and asserting their own pleasures in playing fighting games like Quake. These women are also demanding to be taken seriously by the games industry, questioning the gender stereotypes at the roots of existing games, and standing up for the rights of their younger sisters to have access to the computer. In this next section, we will reprint several editorials by female gamers which appeared on the web in late 1997 and early 1998, offering a snapshot of an emerging subculture, which commands the attention of anyone interested in gender and games. We've chosen to let them speak last to suggest that the debates this book has documented are far from over.
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