Well, today I had my not-so-perfect world intruded upon by someone I had quite happily forgotten about. Namely, a female video game developer who had a bit of a scandal a month or so ago, and then faded into obscurity... or so I thought. And before you ask, no. Even though we all know who I'm talking about, I'm not using that to troll for views, so I'm not going to name the person in my blog. Needless to say, having this person show back up on my radar after a month of happily forgetting she existed irritates me. It irritated me to the point of doing something I've strenuously avoided: It made me make a blog.
Let me make one thing abundantly clear: This post is not to make judgments on anything this person has been accused of, nor is it to defend her from those who have been accused of threatening her. The only judgment I'll make on that issue at all is that I find it idiotic to threaten anyone on the Internet. Best case scenario, the people making threats never follow through and it goes away. Worse case, the people making threats get arrested, even if they never actually intended to go through with it. Worst case, completely innocent people are mistaken for those making threats and innocent lives are ruined. Be smart, don't make idle threats, especially someplace where they'll live forever.
Now, the part that upsets me the most is that this person claims to be a feminist. Here's the actual definition of that word:
Feminist - adjective, sometimes "feministic"
1. advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.
Feminist - noun
2. an advocate of such rights
You see, I am what was once called a feminist, in the truest sense of the word. I firmly believe that women need to be afforded equal opportunities in any business, field of study, or career that they choose. However, I believe that feminists like the girl I mentioned above are actually harming feminism rather than helping it, and here's why: they're skipping the most important step.
What is that step, you ask? It is the part where we, as women, have to work for it.
Look at the careers that women have successfully broken into so far. Medical practice, the law, banking, and many others. All of these careers have something in common where women entering them was concerned. Women had to work twice as hard to earn the respect of their male colleagues. And, while I will be the first to admit that things are not perfectly equal yet, we've come a long way. It's been a very long time since I've heard anyone say a doctor can't be good because they're a woman, or that women can't take care of finances.
This is what's missing in the video games industry. Instead of working hard and avoiding the kind of drama that the person above-mentioned has brought to the forefront, many pseudo-feminists are demanding respect for female game developers before we've actually earned it. Don't take me wrong, there are some exceptional women in the games industry, such as Carol Shaw (the first female games programmer), Anne Westfall (Archon), and the ladies who work with WomenGamers.com. However, many of these modern "feminist" gamer women just don't seem to understand that respect in any field cannot just be given, it must be earned. I, for example, know absolutely nothing about programming, and if I tried to demand respect as a programmer, my friends (both male and female) would rightly laugh their asses off at me. And I would deserve that mocking!
Part of the problem with the way feminists are trying to gain advances in other careers is the methods many of them use. Instead of working with the rules that are already in place, they instead have the rules changed so that it's easier to get women into careers. And honestly, sometimes those careers are the kind that we really should stay out of, merely because of the inescapable physical differences between us and men. Female firefighters come to mind here as the easiest example: How is it helpful to lower the lifting weight requirements just to allow women onto your squad? Not only does lowering that requirement endanger all the squad members if something goes wrong, but also that trapped, 500-pound shut-in isn't going to magically lose 200 pounds just because a woman happens to be the one assigned to rescue them from the burning building.
Thankfully, the video games industry doesn't have those kinds of physical limitations. So ladies, please, if you want to be a video game developer, programmer, or publisher, use those tools that are exactly the same between us and men. Use your intellect and intelligence to make better games than men do. Use your compassion and creativity to tell better stories. Use your ambition and drive to work for your goal. Above all, don't let anyone, male or female, tell you that you won't make it unless we change the rules for you. Screw that and screw them, make those rules work for you!
Here's looking forward to an all new generation of women in gaming, hopefully women who will break their way onto the scenes with true integrity.
Long live the Free Internet.
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