Playing The Game

Abstract

While much literature on girls and video games offers games for girls as presenting an empowerment through the possibility f or girls of active engagement and the possibility of honing skills to win, this paper argues that things are not so simple. Based on a study of children between the ages of 8 and 11 playing video games in after school clubs in Sydney, Australia, the paper argues that most video games are one site for the production of contemporary masculinity. On this basis it is argued that girls playing games have to negotiate complex performances which demand qualities traditionally ascribed to masculinity alongside those ascribed to femininity. This produces difficulties for girls in competing to win while at the same time displaying sensitivity, caring, and co-operation. This is discussed by analysing what happens when some girls play.

Keywords:

• computer games
• gender
• girls
• children

Notes

1. I am aware that one of the constraints of this research is that girls do not play by themselves and are also being surveilled by the researchers while playing. This means that we do not have any sense of whether they play in the same way on their own in private. It is has been suggested to me on several occasions that perhaps some girls are more openly aggressive and more desirous of winning when they can practice alone, which would allow another fantasy, to emerge. While, we cannot know about this, it is certainly a possibility which we can access in a complex way in other parts of the data. For example, in interviews with girls, they claim lack of interest in practising, but in interviews with most parents there is a noticeable management of girls' playing by refusing to let them practice anything but “educational games.” This means that in fact these girls do not get the opportunity to practice to win in anything but that which is sanctioned as suitable for education. I read this as an anxiety about masculinisation on the part of parents as well, of course, as a desire for their daughters to succeed at school. This is further discussed in my book.

2. There is an interesting difference between those girls who would rather choose her for her “to be looked at ness” and those who like being active. We could specify this in terms of the anxiety about femininity, which would preclude too much movement onto the side of masculinity. However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss this in any detail.

3. I am also reminded here that in, the film of Tomb Raider, Lara Croft does the heroics but the men are rendered mainly as incompetent buffoons. It is this counterpoint which allows her heroics to dominate, so that we are offered a different version of masculinity to the standard heroic model. I wonder therefore whether female bravery cannot be shown to exist alongside masculine heroics? However, Lara Croft is shown as the equivalent as an avatar controlled by a man, as she is seen as acting out the will of her father and not the agent or originator of her own actions at all.

4. Though of course, as we know, both Kristeva and Clover are talking about masculinity and the mother. The consideration of how girls and women might like violence is a different matter, see Muriel Dimen (2004).