> >another interesting question: why is it that the vast majority of
> >computer games are obviously "male"? why is it that so few games
> >have any appeal at all to girls? apart from the serious fact that this means
> >one entry point less for females to the world of computers, can't the idiots
> >making games see that they miss a lot of bucks by only making hack'n'slash
> >software for testosterone-packed young males? i mean, face it, there's
> >a huge market out there! half the population, yet to be drawn into the world
of
> >computer games! aren't the creators of games interested in this huge,
> >yet unexploited market segment?! ;-)
>
> 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.
I don't think either men or women are more violent than the other sex -
how one behaves in a given situation mostly comes from one's cultural
background. There is no ground to say that women are or have been less
violent than men are.
Now, before you kill me with flaming, mail bombs and all the kind, please
read on. Yes, I agree that women commit much less violent (and also
non-violent crimes if I'm not too mistaken). To understand my point you
should look a bit at the history and/or think a bit real hard. There
*have been* and there are occasions where the women start and cause the
violence, especialy if fanatical religiousness is also involved. And the
groups that girls form/formed in girls only schools are not at all much
different from the ones boys form - in all of them, violence, punishments
when one has in some manner broken the rules, insulted the leader, etc.,
etc., are not that different - behind *us all* is the same human nature. :)
>
> 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.
There is a thing called female wad for Doom - the image of the "hero" is
that of a female - at least so the discription says, I haven't checked it
out myself. It should be available on most big mirror sites where Id
stuff is kept. At least I saw i on src.doc.ic.ac.uk (that is -
ftp://src....uk). Which shows there are some women around enjoying it
enough...
>
> 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.
>
Sander