Hm ... you could also turn the question around, Trond, and ask, why is it
that women don't go in for violence-based media? I have certainly had the
experience of being one of the only women in the theater for an
ultra-violent movie, and I don't know that I've ever encountered another
woman in one of the comics shops I frequent (though one called on the phone
once while I was there, asking about _The Books of Magic_ ;)
It's an interesting topic, and one without answers, I guess: Are men simply
more violent? Men commit the majority of violent crimes. If so, is that a
product of conditioning? Have we raised women not to be violent? In so
doing, have we also raised women to avoid conflict, or have we taught them
different, perhaps better, ways to resolve conflict? Or, are men just
inherently more violent? It's sort of an impossible issue to discuss, since
emotions run high on either side of the question, all these political issues
being wrapped up in it.
At any rate, I would find any effort to do "girl video games" sort of
offensive. What would they be about? Some kind of daring, high-speed
embroidery race? ;) I'd rather see efforts to understand -- and perhaps
reduce -- gender differences in our society, rather than exploit them for
profit, thereby validating and solidifying them. But exactly how you'd do
that in the case of video games, I don't know.
This is one of those strange topics where, as a feminist, I find myself
sitting on the fence, I guess. I end up defending women's rights to play
with the toys of violence that men have enjoyed for eons, and admiring women
who cross gender lines to enjoy traditionally male subcultures. And yet I
abhor our society's real, non-playful violence, which is often, after all,
turned against women. Our play violence may or may not worsen our real
violence; I suspect it does. Beats me what the answer is. I'm not about to
give up my John Woo flicks, though ;)
________________________________________
Alex <ablock@facstaff.wisc.edu>
My father is not a bad man. He is only a weak one. And he only did
what so many men do: he divided women into groups, although in his case
it was not the body-and-soul dichotomy of the madonna and the whore but
the intellectual twins, the woman of the mind and the one of the heart.