Original Comment by: Nathaniel Givens
Scott-
Thank you SO MUCH for your post! I'm serious man, I was starting to think I'd never have anyone to really cary on this discussion with! I don't know if I'll have time to address all your qusetions, but I'm so glad that you asked them.
1. What is "neo-feminism". It's a term that I invented in responding to this blog to differentiate between classical feminism (think suffrage) and modern feminism (androgony). It's not really a technical term, but I'm using it to refer to women (and men) who take feminism to the point of sexism. I consider myself a staunch feminist in the traditional sense of the word but find modern trends in feminism debasing to both men and women. More on that later if you like, but that's the quick answer.
2. What is my problem with Bonnie's writing? I'll try to break this down by article, but I'm at work and I only have a little time get through a lot of grievances.
Women Monsters and Monstrous Women
Starts out with a great topic - representation of women as characters in computer games. My first issue is with Bonnie's treatment of the damsel in distress. The idea that because women need rescuing they reinforce stereotypes about women (that they are powerless) is well documented. Most people figure that out in high school English classes at the latest. I personally think that if we're talking about the relationship of gamers to these damsels we should also consider what ELSE the damsel in distress motiff conveys: that women are valuable and that their safety should come before the safety of men. So it's not as obviously sexist as Bonnie (and every other high school or college feminist) thinks it is, but I'll give her that point because it's very debatable.
The real problems start with Bonnie's dismissal of the strong, independent heroine. According to Bonnie these characters are not such great role models because "their submissive relationship to interactivity puts them once again at the mercy of male gamers". This is such an utterly stupid proposition that I have a hard time writing about it. Here are the reasons it is stupid.
1 - MOST game protagonists are men, therefore men are subject to the "submissive relationship of interactivity" at a far greater rate than women. We objectify men far more frequently, and probably more narrowly, then we do to women. She fails to address this point, or assumes that if a man plays a game with a male lead the male lead is somehow immune to objectification. As if a man can't objectify the male. This doesnt' seem obvious to me at all. Barbie dolls have impossible physical dimensions - so do GI Joes. What she's really arguing, then, is that women are uniquely susceptible to objectification. In essence: that women make better victims.
2 - She states that there's "something innately sadistic about this interaction" (men playing games with female leads). I find this preposterous statement evidence of Bonnie's weird neo-feminist background. In her world ANY difference between the sexes is construed as sexist - just as some modern feminist thinkers have said that all heterosexual acts (even consensual sex between married people) constitute rape. The object of survival horror (for the gamer) is NOT to endanger the lead. The danger is provided by the game. The object is to SAVE the lead (be it female or male). So I see absolutely no evidence for this innate sadism unless you subscribe to the idea that all men fundamentally want to hurt women. Furthermore, the fact remains that there are more male leads than female leads in general. So are male gamers only sadistic when the lead is female? What about when girl gamers play? Are they fundamentally sadists too?
Plus, she contradicts this whole analysis only a few pages later! "Heroines....are the player". And later "the player...feels himself more susceptible in the skin of a woman." So this means our male gamers are not actually sadists, their transgender masochists. Bonnie can't even keep her own analysis consistent for the length of one article.
Pause to note that her comments about the sexualization of women vs. men in games were, I thought, spot on.
3. - Monsters as feminine. It should be obvious by this point that Bonnie's coclusions about the sadistic relationship between male gamers and female leads were just a prop to get to her stunning conclusion: that only through monsters can women express or find their true independence/equality/whatever. The sad, sad fact is that in her desperate attempt to finish her clever thesis - and to find a solution to the inequality of gender representation in games - Bonnie has reduced the entire vast spectrum of male/female relationships to the singularly narrow definition of physical power. This is stupid for several reasons. First of all: men win. I'm sorry - but it's just a fact that men are bigger and stronger (on average) then women. This doesn't mean we're more powerful unless you have such a narrow conception of "power" that the only thing that matters to youis the relative ability to inflict bodily injury on other creatures.
As a result of this inescapable biological fact Bonnie has to resort to all sorts of mental contortions to try and find equality (using her narrow framework for this dicussions). The first result of this move on her part is the fact that she looks for role-models to "Lisa Trevor, once a lonely little girl but now an invincible, chain swinging creature" and "a handful of pitchfork-wielding female enemies dispersed amont the zombie-like townspeople".
The analysis here is stunning: Bonnie is essentially advocating (because her only measure of power is physical force) that we exchange the feminity of female character for brute force. The greatest violence done to women is what Bonnie herself advocates: she wants to turn little GIRLS into chain swinging CREATURES or just pitchfork wielding ZOMBIES if that's what it takes to get physical power. Bonnie isn't content to strip women of their feminitiy, she finds it preferable to strip them of their very humanity as well! By doing this she finds "a new type of gender equality".
Yeah - I suppose if we reduce humans to zombies and creatures we can erase the male/female differences. One of the things that distinguishes humans as evoluationarily advanced organisms is the highly specialized differences between the sexes. These differences are, in my opinion, both fascinating and beautiful. But men have more muscle mass in general, and Bonnie apparently finds this situation intolerable, and a better universe in her mind is one in which the entire human species retrogrades to a sexually neutral state.
Bonnie goes on to say that what she's done is strip the females of "cultural niceties", but this is simply untrue: she's left no distinctions whatsoever except, we presume, a Y-chromose for the males and an X-chromosome for the females that don't actually act any differently. This is why I criticize Bonnie for neglecting real biological differences. She doesn't just fail to mention them, she doesn't leave any room for them to exist at all. When she's finished cleansing the "cultural niceties" she's stripped women of their feminity AND humanity - there's nothing of consequence left to attribute to biology.
4 - What makes women mosters scary? Because for Bonnie there's nothing more to human interaction than the threat of bodily injury she can only advocate female power if the female can either tear you apart or at least looks like it could tear you apart. Then, however, she suddenly backtracks and says that female monsters are scary because of "the abnormal nature of their behavior, as compared to accepted standards of womanly conduct". Why, I'm tempted to ask, isn't it the abnormal nature of their behavior compared to accepted standards of HUMAN contact? Isn't that what makes zombies scary? That they have our bodies but are not us? We tend to dress zombies in recognizable fashions to make them scary - the high school cheerleader and the high school jock - the icons of American heartland - are suddenly transformed into blood-craving, undead fiends. Are we afraid of the cheer-leader zombie because she's nto behaving like a girl, or because she's not behaving like a human? The fact that we ALSO have male-archetype zombies demonstrates that the underlying fear is that loss of humanity entirely.
Sure, it's an extra jolt when the supposedly timid housewife is the zombie coming at you with a cleaver. But again Bonnie's analysis is flawed because of her incredibly miopic worldview. All that matters to her is power - and only physical power. So while it would be possible to say that we as a society have a HIGHER opinion of women because it's easier for us to see some faceless zombie in a suit and tie then a zombie housewife with, say, a little baby zombie in tow. This means that for us men are fundamentally less human, more expendable, and just have less power over us than a mother figure. You could make the argument that this is evidence of the POWER of women in our society - that we are most afraid of women who want to hurt us as opposed to men who want to hurt us, but ONLY if we admit to something other than brute physical force as our guide - and Bonnie's too narrow-minded to do that.
I've run out of time to get to the other articles. But let me just wrap up what I'm saying here. I object to having Bonnie as a writer because she has such an overly simplistic worldview that it constrains everything she says. Men are all sadists, women are all victims. Perhaps as a result of this starting point her theses are incredibly infantile in their scope and lack even the barest requirements of internal consistency. One minute male gamers are manipulating women characters, the next moment male gamers ARE women characters. Bonnie will write whatever it takes to get to her conclusion. This proves to me at least that Bonnie is dogmatic in her beliefs. Anyone who is willing to contradict themself in order to prove a point clearly doesn't believe that point for rational reasons - they are just using intellectual devices as a cover for the fact that they are baldly asserting their worldview JUST BECAUSE.
Natalie and Andrea-
NOW do you see why I consider her to be sexist? Also for Natalie - pretending the differences don't exist is worse than focussing on them. If you're going to say "we're more the same then different" the same holds true (genetically) for humans and monkeys as well, not to mention humans and elephants or whales.
