While I do love talking about video games as much as anyone and their dog who loves the medium, I consider it healthy, and stimulating to talk about some other indirectly related aspects of it such as their impact on society on a greater scale and the business side of it. One topic that always gets brought up, too, is how women are treated. And by that, I don’t mean the depiction of women in video games, but more about how a form of entertainment that’s long been known to be male-dominated treats its steadily growing and now very considerable female player base.
The BBC World Service radio program, Assignment , does just that in this particular episode. It features interviews with the creators of Not In The Kitchen Anymore and Fat, Ugly, or Slutty, two female-oriented gaming sites that tackle the problems of verbal misogyny and harassment in the video game community. Also in this episode, a very short interview with Emily Chow, a good friend of mine and more or less a regular of the fighting game community in Toronto, Canada.
Keep in mind that this episode is just a tiny reflection of what’s going on in the other side of the world. There’s a whole treasure trove worth of material out there to read regarding this topic. Locally, do you think things are actually better here, or are we just as bad as Western gamers with regard to how we treat female gamers? Give the episode a listen and sound off in the comments.
via [BBC World Service Programmes] – and the image, too
