Choice of Gender Roles

Are you familiar with Choice of Games? If not, you should be; they make light choose-your-own-adventure style interactive fiction for web browser and mobile device. It's a fun and timely concept, and I aspire to write a ChoiceScript game as my next indie personal project. (Full disclosure: One of the team members, Dan Fabulich, is an old friend of mine and a fellow Cloudmakers moderator.)

Thus far they've only done a couple of games in-house. In Choice of the Dragon, you get to live a titular life of treasure-hoarding and wizard-eating; in Choice of Broadsides, you're a young commanding officer aboard a naval vessel. 

Their approach to gender in their games is very, very interesting; in Choice of Broadsides, they essentially created two separate versions of the game -- one with a traditional patriarchal structure for men to play, and one with a gender-flipped matriarchal society for women. It's well-intentioned, to be sure, but the idea ultimately leaves me a little uneasy. 

I'm Not a Man But I Play One on Xbox

Here's the thing; in Choice of Broadsides, the male half of the game happens in... let's face it, in the real world, or in an historical variant thereof. The female universe is fictional. Never existed, never will. So the woman's version becomes a work of fantasy rather than historic fiction right off the bat. But more, swapping the gender roles and power dynamics to put the female in the more powerful position is... well, in a way, it's denying me a legitimate female experience in that world. This makes me sad.

A lot of games -- I am looking at you, Fable 2 -- give you the choice of playing as a female character in the same exact world. But that choice is basically a choice of avatar, and for the most part, the world doesn't react to your female-ness in any meaningful sense. You might as well be a man with breasts strapped on.

You may all be tired of hearing me talk about Dragon Age by now, but one of the things I found so captivating about that game was the overt sexism of some characters. It was incredibly satisfying to me to have a character take a dismissive attitude of me in the game, because I was a woman -- as in real life -- and have the power in the game to rise above it and prove them wrong, in a way I don't always have the courage or capacity to do in real life.

It bears noting that historical romance is a very popular genre. I speculate that part of the reason is the underlying power dynamic, where a woman in a position of relatively little social power nonetheless manages to get her heart's desire in the end. This is a very powerful fantasy.

Socially Just Fiction

Well then, what's the right way to do it? There are three basic approaches to dealing with sexism in fiction.

1. Telling your story in a sexism-free, utopian society.

2. Mirroring the gender-soaked world we live in.

3. The novel Choice of Games approach of reversing gender roles. 

Each of these has a terrible disadvantage. The utopian society won't feel true and can't address difficult issues; mirroring our world supports the notion that our current state of gender affairs is just how things are, and how they will be. And reversing gender roles can ultimately leave you with a series of games where you never really get the experience of playing as a woman, because the world never really lets you be a woman; it lets you be a man with some hand-waving around babies and pronouns.

It's not easy to be an activist and put yourself on the hook to speak out when you find injustice. But as difficult as that is, it's a lot harder to try to write good interactive content when you're trying to do the right thing, because there is literally no decision you can make that will leave you free of criticism -- well, short of just not making anything at all. And who wants that?

Walk a Mile in Someone Else's Shoes

There's a compelling counter-example to my criticism in the upcoming Choice game, Choice of the Consort. As I understand it, the default experience of the new game is actually the woman's experience, specifically as a woman who has attracted the attention of a philandering king. And so the flipped universe is the reverse of the Choice of Broadsides situation -- men are being placed in the shoes of the less-powerful sex. 

It definitely takes the tooth out of a lot of my criticism, because creating games where the initial or intended play experience is that of both genders is way less problematic than creating games where the default is always for men. Does the switch rob the men of the experience of playing as a man? Yeah, kind of. But at least both genders are getting the shaft in equal measures.

I find that far more interesting than building a matriarchal navy, in terms of ingenuity and ambition. As with the controversial FPS Hey, Baby, by putting a man in a woman's shoes and stripping him of gender privilege, it may shed light on something he never thought of that way before. Maybe it'll even subtly change a few hearts and minds against casual sexism. Stranger things have happened.

And finally: Kudos to Choice of Games for taking steps to address gender concerns in the first place. Indeed, they go a mile further, and are working hard to account for gay relationships, as well, which require additional layers of thought and world-building in their historical settings. 

And all criticism aside, every time we have this conversation, it helps a little more, and we all get a little better. I'm glad they're out there and taking this stuff seriously. 

Comments

[John Evans]

I once had an idea for a game which incorporated gender switching as a mechanic.

However, I realized that if I didn't want it to be just fluff, I would have to do some heavy thinking and research...

[Andrea]

I nod sagely in your direction, John. Treating this stuff seriously is so hard to do.

[Cayden]

I appreciate your analysis. I think in the case of underprivileged social groups, it can be super-beneficial to feature a narrative like the one you point out in Dragon Age. It's also good to offer those kinds of opportunities. As you say, this can be an opportunity to educate and empower.

To take it to the next level -- I alternately wish and also tremble with fear at the idea of someone developing a game where *real* trans characters feature prominently. I remember the first time I discovered the cursed gender-switching belt in Baldur's Gate and being like WTF? (I actually put it on Minsk and didn't take it off because it tickled me a bit.)

But in terms of taking seriously trans characters and accurately portraying some kind of reality? Never. Never ever.

On that note, John, maybe we should talk. :)

[Andrea]

Thank you, Cayden.

From my (awful, ignorant, hopefully not offensive) perspective, I'm curious how you would want a narrative to differ for a trans character vs. a transitioned avatar in your preferred gender of presentation. I'd consider the trans process to be very personal and private, and not something you *would* want to address in a game. The fantasy of being accepted as how you see yourself...

Though I guess if I'm looking for the reality of sexism in a game, I can't be surprised you'd want the reality of other kinds of discrimination, either, eh?

[Cayden]

Well, it's a complicated question. For starters, a trans character's narrative and development might not fit squarely into *either* gender role. For example, you might have a trans character who is, from a "medical standpoint" transitioning from male to female but doesn't think of hirself as a woman. While the transitioning process is often very personal, gender itself is built out of the social interactions we have with others. Which is to say nothing of the fact that the psychological impact of modifying one's body is personal as well as social (and for some of us, political).

Moreover, the way that people are treated when they don't squarely fit the popular notion of what a man or a woman should be is a very real, very public, and very scary part of transitioning that would be a really fascinating aspect of a game featuring a transgender character (especially a transgender player character). I think that one of the greatest opportunities for telling these kinds of stories via games is that we can build characters who have experiences that large groups of trans people will identify with, but those characters can also be distinct individuals.

I guess that's a compelling argument for telling stories about sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, racism, or any other kind of discrimination in games -- often we get caught up on the social identity of individuals as members of groups and not as individuals, you know?

Interestingly, one of my first escapes as a gender non-conforming kid going through puberty was to create characters in video games that were who I wanted to be (at the time) -- confident, intelligent, good-looking men. Nobody really thought anything of it at the time but for me it was paradise!

[Andrea]

I see what you mean. It's easy to think of it as a disconnected before/after, when the reality is years and years of emotional process at the very least, and sometimes an endpoint that isn't clearly in one camp enough to make society comfortable. Tricky, tricky.

This would also make for some truly compelling drama. I'll try to rise to the occasion, one of these days. It will be terrifying and I will get it wrong, but this is better than not trying, yes?

[Cayden]

Sometimes. Get a good team of consultants. :)

[cassey]

I just wanted to say, I like what you said and how you said it. :)

[Andrea]

Cayden: Now where would I find those...? ~_^

Cassey: Thanks so much!

[Ouroboros]

Did you play Violet? I find the gender-option in that IF analogous to the gender-option in Dictionary of the Khazars. But I wonder how you might place it on a spectrum of experience of play as a female charater.

[CASEY24Jocelyn]

Cars and houses are not very cheap and not every person is able to buy it. However, loans was created to support people in such kind of situations.

[codicier]

Hi sorry to throw in a question so long after the main debates over but I was wondering what your opinion on Biowares Mass Effect series is.

In particular i'd be interested in what you think about the Asari.They are essentially a purely female & matriarchal race who posses what is probably the closest thing the ME universe's has to a Utopian society.

ME's universe generally matches your 2nd description of mirroring the world we live in. But the Asari seem to be there as a kinda counterpoint to it giving a player the Utopian view of gender your talk about.

all in all your post was very interesting and i enjoyed browsing some of the comments and links.

[Andrea]

Sorry for the delay in responding, codicier. I haven't played Mass Effect, but my thinking on it so far has been shaped by writing like this: http://www.gamecritics.com/alex-raymond/beyond-gender-choice-mass-effects-varied-inclusiveness

I'd hesitate to take a solid stand on it, though, until I've actually played. I'll get around to it. ^_^

[Jason Hill]

Andrea,

Thank you for your great post. Your point is well taken, particularly because I have wrestled with many of the questions you have raised.

In Choice of the Vampire, I have elected your possibility #2, where questions of gender, race and sexual identity are represented with a sense of verisimilitude. It will no doubt make some people uncomfortable.

My decisions, however, seek to describe the world, and not the player/character. Seeking to eschew essentialism, I have sought to let the player define himself, in accordance or against the projections of the world of the game.

You can read a longer post on the matter here: http://bit.ly/dAHnAK

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on my take on these issues, especially once you have had a chance to play the game a few times.

Regards,-Jason Hill

[Andrea]

Hey, Jason, thanks for commenting. We can mull over approaches and techniques all the day long, but let's not overlook the most important thing -- you're actively thinking about this stuff in the first place. This puts you light years ahead of an awful lot of the competition, so to speak. ^_^

I'm planning on writing a little more about Vampire and Romance sometime in the indistinct future, when I've had a chance to play 'em out a few more times.