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FEMINISM
I N P L AY
eds.kishonna l. gray : gerald voorhees
: emma vossen
Palgrave Games in Context
Series Editors
Neil Randall
The Games Institute
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON, Canada
Steve Wilcox
Game Design and Development
Wilfrid Laurier University
Brantford, ON, Canada
Games are pervasive in contemporary life, intersecting with leisure, work,
health, culture, history, technology, politics, industry, and beyond. These
contexts span topics, cross disciplines, and bridge professions.
Palgrave Games in Context situates games and play within such interdisci-
plinary and interprofessional contexts, resulting in accessible, applicable, and
practical scholarship for students, researchers, game designers, and industry
professionals. What does it mean to study, critique, and create games in con-
text? This series eschews conventional classifications—such as academic disci-
pline or game genre—and instead looks to practical, real-world situations to
shape analysis and ground discussion. A single text might bring together pro-
fessionals working in the field, critics, scholars, researchers, and designers. The
result is a broad range of voices from a variety of disciplinary and professional
backgrounds contributing to an accessible, practical series on the various and
varied roles of games and play.
Feminism in Play
Gerald Voorhees
Managing Editor
Editors
Kishonna L. Gray Gerald Voorhees
Department of Gender and Women’s Studies Department of Communication Arts
and Communication University of Waterloo
University of Illinois at Chicago Waterloo, ON, Canada
Chicago, IL, USA
Emma Vossen
Department of English Language
and Literature
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON, Canada
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements
It is a commonplace, but a true one, to start by saying that this book would
not have been possible without the efforts of a great many people. We owe
thanks to the generous colleagues who donated their time and intellectual
energies to help review manuscripts for this volume: Jennifer Whitson, Steve
Wilcox, Betsy Brey, Kim Nguyen, and Rachel Miles.
We would also like to thank our fellow editors who did magnificent work
on the other two volumes in this trilogy. Of course, this book can and does
stand on its own, but it has been enriched by our collaboration with Todd
Harper, Meghan Blythe Adams, and Nick Taylor on the Queerness in Play and
Masculinities in Play anthologies.
We would be remiss to overlook the editorial team at Palgrave Macmillan,
notably Shaun Vigil, whose support made this ambitious project possible, and
Glenn Ramirez for laying out clearly how to make it actual.
Kishonna would like to thank the courageous women inside and around
gaming for their daily sacrifices and for sharing their stories with us. The
world needs to know how dope you are.
Emma would like to thank everyone from First Person Scholar including
faculty advisors Neil Randall, Gerald Voorhees, and Jennifer Whitson. Special
thanks go to my fellow FPS editors and friends Elise Vist, Alexandra Orlando,
Judy Ehrentraut, Betsy Brey, Meghan Adams, Chris Lawrence, Phil Miletic,
Rob Parker, Jason Hawreliak, Michael Hancock, and especially Steve
Wilcox—without all of you I wouldn’t be studying games. I would also like to
thank all my family and friends including my favorite gamer, my brother
Edward. Extra special thanks to my partner Keith and my mother Nancy who
do the daily labour of listening to me complain while making sure I’m safe,
fed, and happy.
v
vi Acknowledgements
Gerald would also like to thank colleagues who provided advice, encour-
agement, criticism, and even resources to help make this project happen.
Vershawn Young, Jennifer Simpson, Jennifer Roberts-Smith, Kim Nguyen,
Neil Randall, Jennifer Jenson, and Suzanne de Castell all deserve thanks, as do
any others I may have neglected to list here. I reserve my most special grati-
tude for Kim and Quinn for their support during this project, but more
importantly for their sustained encouragement to better practice feminism in
my everyday life.
Contents
vii
viii Contents
Index 267
Notes on Contributors
Angela R. Cox received her PhD in English Rhetoric and Composition from the
University of Arkansas, USA in 2016. She grew up playing Nintendo and Sierra
games, unaware that these were “for boys.” Her scholarly interest in games started
while studying at Ohio State University, USA, with some research in fantasy that
quickly grew into research in feminism. She teaches English at Ball State University,
USA.
Milena Droumeva is Assistant Professor of Communication and Sound Studies at
Simon Fraser University, Canada, specializing in mobile technologies, sound and
multimodal ethnography. She has a background in acoustic ecology and works across
the fields of urban soundscape research, sonification for public engagement, as well as
gender and sound in video games. Milena is co-investigator for ReFiG, a SSHRC
partnership grant exploring women’s participation in the games industries and game
culture.
Simone Evangelista is a PhD candidate in the Post-graduate Program in
Communication at Federal Fluminense University, Brazil, and a member of the
Laboratory in Experiences of Engagement and Transformation of Audiences (LEETA).
Reynaldo Gonçalves is a Master’s student in the Post-graduate Program in
Communication at Federal Fluminense University and a member of the Laboratory
in Experiences of Engagement and Transformation os Audiência (LEETA).
Kishonna L. Gray is an assistant professor in the Department of Gender and
Women’s Studies and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago,
USA. She is also a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and
Society at Harvard University, USA. Gray previously served as a MLK Scholar and
Visiting Professor in Women and Gender Studies and Comparative Media Studies at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
xi
xii Notes on Contributors
Fig. 4.1 Voice actress sounding out Elizabeth: ‘Putting the body into it’:
source 1 (https://goo.gl/6dzbaj); Lara Croft in Tomb Raider 2013
navigates the environment with breathy moans and pants at the
forefront of gameplay: source 2 (https://goo.gl/gTqqcM)57
Fig. 6.1 Screenshots from Adventure (left) and Pitfall! (right). Courtesy of
the Wikimedia Foundation 88
Fig. 6.2 Screenshots from Beat’em and Eat’em (left) and Philly Flasher (right).
Courtesy of James Rolfe and Mike Matei of Angry Video Game Nerd89
Fig. 6.3 Screenshot from Menace Beach (left) showing Bunny’s decaying
clothes. Courtesy of James Rolfe and Mike Matei of Angry Video
Game Nerd. Screenshot showing Samus Aran without her Power
Suit (right). Courtesy of the Wikimedia Foundation 90
Fig. 6.4 Screenshot from Final Fantasy VII featuring a long shot of Aerith
Gainsborough’s home in the sector 5 slums. The grandeur of this
shot—combined with the relative insignificance of the game
character (bottom left corner) due to the disparate character-to-
screen ratio—encourages the player to pause and become con-
sumed by the exceptional beauty of the game world. Such
moments have become a part of modern gaming since the advent
of the PlayStation, and cannot be thought of as “pauses” or
“deferrals” but rather an essential feature of world building.
Screenshot by first author 92
Fig. 6.5 Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII (left) and Lara Croft
from Tomb Raider (right). Regarding the image of Lara Croft, as
we are introduced to her in this sequence, the man in her reflec-
tion states: “what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention
from you.” Screenshots by first author 94
xv
xvi List of Figures
Fig. 6.6 The Evolution of Lara Croft’s character models from 1996
to 2013. Tomb Raider Chronicles (TRC [2000]) was the last Tomb
Raider developed solely for PlayStation 1 equivalent platforms;
and it is important to note that while Tomb Raider: Anniversary
(TRA [2007]) and Tomb Raider: Underworld (TRU [2008]) were
developed for PlayStation 3 equivalent platforms, their visual
design was held back by the need to operate on “last generation”
equivalent platforms. Courtesy of Ron from Cloud
Gaming (2014) 95
Fig. 6.7 Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII (left) and Lara Croft from
Tomb Raider (right). Screenshots by author 96
Fig. 7.1 General model of a traditional career pipeline 106
Fig. 7.2 Percentage of class that is women. Source: IGDA DSS 2015 111
Fig. 7.3 Occupational segregation of non-managerial core developer
roles by gender. Source: IGDA DSS 2015 113
Fig. 9.1 Comparative board between male and female respondents 156
Fig. 9.2 Reactions to expression “rape the boss” 157
Fig. 9.3 Gender and safety 157
Fig. 10.1 A female streamer playing League of Legends 168
Fig. 10.2 A male streamer playing League of Legends 168
Fig. 10.3 Alinity’s Twitch profile 171
Fig. 10.4 Hafu’s Twitch profile 173
Fig. 10.5 SeriouslyClara’s Twitch profile 175
Fig. 12.1 Author’s chart 211
1
Introduction: Reframing Hegemonic
Conceptions of Women and Feminism
in Gaming Culture
Kishonna L. Gray, Gerald Voorhees, and Emma Vossen
K. L. Gray ()
University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA
G. Voorhees • E. Vossen
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
It would have doubled the work on those things. And I mean it’s something the
team really wanted, but we had to make a decision… It’s unfortunate, but it’s a
reality of game development. (Williams 2014)
"Unless it were interfered with." In this last meeting with Mary, brief as
it had been, Rodrigo detected something that would ordinarily have set his
heart to exulting. Mary's coming to him, her eagerness to extend her
personal greetings alone, her face and manner, her desire to remain longer
and her obvious disappointment at his rather, curt reception of her, had
convinced him of something that, never addicted to false modesty, he did not
hide.
Mary Drake still loved him, was the refrain that kept pounding in his
heart. He could have her now if he wanted to take her. If he remained near
her, he would not be able to keep his love silent. He would have to tell her.
Every fibre of his being would revolt against the sacrifice. He would not be
strong enough to give her up to John, though John needed her, loved her,
depended upon her to keep him out of the dark shadows that had so
tragically enveloped him.
"I have been wondering," John said, "why you came back so suddenly,
without warning us. I had been expecting a letter or cablegram for weeks. I
had begun to worry about you. You left no forwarding address with me.
And, of course, I would not have asked you to cut short your vacation
anyway. Poor chap, you were tired out, and, to tell you the truth, you don't
look particularly chipper now."
John asked quietly, "Did she say what those 'developments' were?"
"No."
"And the 'developments' she spoke of?" Rodrigo's voice sounded very
small.
John tapped the ashes from his pipe, looked at his friend gravely.
"Rodrigo," he said, "I have found out the truth about Elise."
"I know that she is dead," John continued. "And I know that you know
she is dead, that you have always known it. But wait, I will begin at the
beginning! You will remember that I spoke to you before you left about
selling my house in Millbank. Well, I kept putting that off because I dreaded
to enter the place. You see, I had left everything exactly the way it was
before—she went. While my mental condition was still uncertain, I did not
want to disturb things. I felt that the shock of going there, seeing her room,
her clothes, everything that my happiness, my life, had depended upon,
would be too much for me. Even after I came back from California feeling
so much improved, I kept putting it off. I dreaded the ordeal. But three or
four weeks after you left, I pulled myself together, told myself that those
foolish fears were nonsense, a sign even that I had gone a little mad. So I
went over there, and I spent two whole days in the house, alone. I put my
house of memories in order. And, Rodrigo, I found out many terrible things."
But John went on calmly. "Well, I had to break into her desk, among
other things, and I found there letters, love-letters from other men. Among
them were letters from you, showing me, Rodrigo, that she loved you and
that you had had the courage to repulse her love. My idol crashed then and
there down to the floor, and the whole world went black again. Rodrigo,
there in that room alone I came as near going crazy as I hope ever to again in
this world. I cursed God for letting me see that He had made life so hideous.
I wanted to die. But I came through it. I think that it was those letters of
yours—those letters were striking blows for my happiness—that brought me
through. That is twice you have saved my life, Rodrigo—once from Rosner
and once—from myself."
Rodrigo rose and cried suddenly, "Don't say that, John! I can't bear it!"
"Please, Rodrigo," John restrained him. "I understand. You have always
tried to protect my happiness. You tried to keep me from knowing that I
loved a woman who never existed. But she is dead now. After I came out of
that house and went back to my father's and told them what I had found, they
confessed to me that anonymous notes had come to me soon after Elise's
disappearance hinting that I might learn something about her if it were
possible to identify the victims of the Van Clair fire. My father and Warren
had kept those notes from me. They felt it was time now to tell me about
them. And it became clear to me. The woman who died in the Van Clair fire
was Elise."
Rodrigo cried out, the secret wrenched from him almost without his
volition, "I know she was! And I sent her there that night, John! You'll
remember you went to Philadelphia and wired me to take the midnight train
and meet you the next morning. Well, she came to me that night in the
office, where I was working on the estimates. I was in a reckless mood,
disappointed—but no matter, it was no excuse for me. I sent her to the Van
Clair, intending to follow. Oh, I didn't go. I got my senses back, thank God!
But I was responsible. I thought I had grown so good, and I knifed my best
friend." He lifted his pale, stricken face to John, pleading for mercy, "I've
been through an ordeal too, John. The difference between us is that—I
deserved it and—the ordeal is going to go right on. Even though I've torn
this awful secret out of me at last!"
John Dorning was silent, stunned, trying to realize the significance of his
friend's confession.
And again Rodrigo cried out, pleadingly, "I couldn't tell you before,
John. I had to let you go on driving yourself crazy from anxiety about her. I
thought it would kill you to know. Mary begged me to tell you—but I
couldn't." Tears were in his eyes. His strong body was shaken with emotion.
Suddenly he flung himself at John's feet and no longer tried to control his
weeping.
And finally John spoke, and Rodrigo wonderingly looked up and saw
that John had a little smile on his face, that he was laying gentle hands upon
the recumbent back. "I knew something was tearing at you," John said, "And
I'm glad you told me about—Elise. Knowing her now for what she really
was, I can forgive you, Rodrigo. None of us are perfect. God knows I have
found that out. You were my friend even that night of the Van Clair—in the
critical moment you were my friend. And you always will be."
Dorning helped Rodrigo to his feet, made him smile again, took his
hand. Rodrigo clutched it, crying, "John, you are a saint. If you hadn't
forgiven me, if you—" He turned his head and went slowly back to his chair.
"I told Mary what I had discovered about Elise," said John. A light of
understanding burst upon him with these words. He ventured, "Rodrigo, had
you told her already of—the Van Clair?"
Rodrigo nodded affirmatively.
"She called me a coward for not telling you the truth, sick as you were.
She said she could not—respect me, if I didn't."
"She loves you," Rodrigo answered softly, but he could not quite keep
the despair out of his voice.
"I wish you'd take it easy for a while at the shop, Rodrigo. You don't look
well," he said gently. "Rosner has things quite well in hand. We miss you,
but I do want you well and perfectly happy when you come back to work."
"Not because of anything you have said here to-night, I hope," John
urged at once. "I want you to believe me, old man, that your confession
hasn't made any difference. It's rather relieved my mind, to tell the truth. I
suspected something was up that I did not yet know about. It's made me love
you more than ever, drawn us closer."
"I appreciate that, John. I feel the same way," Rodrigo said.
CHAPTER XX
Rodrigo walked slowly into the offices of the Italian-American Line late
the next morning, like a man lately condemned to the scaffold, and booked
passage on a vessel sailing for Naples the following Saturday. Then he took
the subway uptown.
The warm sun drenching the exhibition rooms of Dorning and Son, the
cheerful good mornings of the clerks, mocked at his mood. He summoned a
masking smile on his face and held it while he opened the door of John's
office and strode in. Mary was sitting beside John at the latter's desk, their
heads quite close together. They had been talking confidentially, almost
gayly. Their faces sobered as they looked up at the intruder. It seemed a
warning to Rodrigo that he must go through with his program. The faint
hope, conceived the night before, that the "developments" Mary had written
him about, concerned the discovery of Elise's treachery only and had nothing
to do with an announcement of a troth between Mary and John, vanished. It
was unmistakable. They loved each other. It showed in the quick, warning
glance that passed between them as he entered, in the way they almost
sprang apart at the sight of a third person.
"Many of them. And they were unchanged too. It was the same old story.
I met a girl in Naples whose father had once blackmailed me for an affair
with her—and now I suppose he'll be blackmailing me over again. In
London, I ran across Sophie Binner. You remember Sophie? We became
quite good friends again. She seems to be my sort. I'm what you called me—
a coward." He sighed, and watched her face.
But her face, strangely enough, did not flinch. She asked him in the same
quiet voice, "You are trying to tell me that you are the same man you were
that first day here, when you tried to play sheik with me, flirted with me?"
"I shouldn't think you would have come back here—after playing fast
and loose all over Europe, after betraying the trust John and I put in you."
"Nevertheless, you shouldn't have come in that case. You should have
stayed with your—friends."
"I know. You are right," he said. "And I am going back to—them. I
booked my passage this morning. I am sailing in a week for Italy, and this
time I am not coming back."
She started. Her face lost its imperturbability. She said, "And that is all
you have to say to me?"
He leaned toward her, his throat filling with a storm of words. But then
he fell back, lowering his head. "Yes," he said in a low voice. "That is all—
that and—please think as well as you can of me, Mary. And go on—loving
John and taking care of him."
Her lips were twitching a little now. "Do you want to know what I really
think of you?" she asked suddenly.
He raised his tired eyes, his eyes that were saying what his lips were
sealed against, and he nodded his head.
She suddenly left her chair and came to him, laid her hands upon his
shoulders, and said clearly and proudly, "I think that you are a terrible fibber.
I think you have a crazy notion that John and I are in love. And I know this
—I love you, Rodrigo, and you are never going to leave me again."
And then he reached out and clutched her fiercely, devouringly into his
arms, kissed her again and again, crying her name pitifully like a baby. And
when at last he, still holding her tightly, raised her face so that he could look
at it and prove he was not dreaming, he saw that she too was weeping.
He cried, "Mary! Mary! Oh, my dear," again and again. And again and
again he kissed her.
Finally he let her go to adjust her disheveled hair and clothes into some
semblance of order. She smiled at him and asked, "How could you think I
could love anybody but you—coward or no coward? Oh, I found out while
you were gone how foolish I was ever to risk losing you. I lay awake
reviling myself that I had sent you away—yes, I did send you. And I had to
have you back—or dash over to Europe and search for you."
"It is only John," she said happily. "He knows—about us. He confirmed
my suspicions that you were torturing yourself with this silly idea that he
and I were in love. He even foretold that you would pretend to be the bold,
bad man of old. John is wise, you see, wiser even than you. But not half so
——"
CHAPTER XXI
But, after all, Rodrigo sailed for Italy the next Saturday. Though he had
changed his booking from a single to a double cabin and the passenger list
read: The Count and Countess Rodrigo di Torriani.
John Dorning, looking almost as radiant as the bride and groom, saw
them off at the pier. For a long time they stood chatting on the deck of the
great vessel together, these three young people amid the throng of waving,
shouting tourists. When the warning blasts sounded from the smokestack
whistle, John whispered banteringly to Rodrigo, "This time you will not call
upon any of your ex-lady friends, eh? Rosa or Sophie—you bet I was glad to
get that good news of Sophie. Well, cable me when you land. And please
come back on schedule. You are leaving Dorning and Son terribly
handicapped, you know—my two best partners away at once." He kissed
Mary and pressed Rodrigo's hand, and hurried down the gangplank. He
stood there, a thin, but sturdy figure, waving to them while the great ship
backed out into the channel and pointed her bow toward the east.
"John Dorning is the finest of all the men that ever lived," Rodrigo said
solemnly.
"Almost," Mary replied.
Gliding through the magic moonlight over a mirror-like sea, they sat
very close to each other that evening in deck-chairs, and she said to him, at
the end of a long conversation, "And that is why I love you most, Rodrigo—
because you have conquered yourself."
"Yes, so has John. And both you—and I—have found joy because of
that. It's the only way to win real happiness."
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