Society’s gender roles arrogantly presume to know what a person’s divine gifts will be.
This article originally appeared on Tim’s Talk.
“You’re not gonna use the pink ball. We’re not gonna let you do that. Not on camera.” – Rick Santorum to a boy reaching for a bowling ball
I was never a particularly macho kid. Yeah, my brother and I played with cars and trucks. We even played the occasional vacant lot baseball game. Despite that, I never played organized sports. I was the last picked for teams in gym class. I chose the Drama electives instead of more manly subjects. Crying was not outside of my repertoire. Coming of age when I did, it was not easy to be the sensitive boy.
“When are you going to get a real job?”—Cindy, about my work educating infants and toddlers
Spending my days nurturing and caring for infants and toddlers was not the traditional path for a man in the early 1980s. I knew it might be a lonely path when I became the first man to graduate from the early childhood degree program at Illinois State University. While blessed by a fully supportive fiancée and now wife, I had also hoped—perhaps in vain—that my friends would understand. Some did. Cindy did not.
There were jobs I did not receive because of a cultural bias that any man who wanted to work with babies must be a molester. It was not easy blazing a trail. The joys and contentment I have always felt with humanity’s youngest is a clear sign that this was the Divinely-led path for me.
As a bi-vocational minister, I still spend time working with babies and young children part-time. Things have gotten better or, perhaps, I’ve just gotten better at finding people who see my gifts. Nonetheless there are far too few men who work with young children. Our culture still has stratified roles for women and men.
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When we force boys or girls into rigid, culturally-constructed roles based upon their sexual organs, we deny their humanity. We deny their Divinely created gifts. In effect, we idolize—treat as a god—our own socially-constructed gender roles.
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I felt anger rise within me. My eyes watered as I read of a presidential candidate discouraging a boy from using a pink bowling ball. I know how it feels to have who you are created to be dismissed by others. I am not alone in these feelings. Certainly women in traditionally men’s professions have a more difficult journey than I’ve had as a white man.
When we force boys or girls into rigid, culturally-constructed roles based upon their sexual organs, we deny their humanity. We deny their Divinely created gifts. In effect, we idolize—treat as a god—our own socially-constructed gender roles.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. —1 Corinthians 12: 4-11 NRSV (View this passage in context.)
When we discourage girls from studying the sciences or boys from nurturing babies, we teach our children to ignore the Spirit. We tell our children to pretend to be someone they are not. We tell God that we know better.
—Photo credit: bradleypjohnson/Flickr
Hey who even cares what anyone says about masculinity anymore. We can play with pink bowling balls but we can’t play video games and watch southpark?
Bullshit.
You can still do those things. They are still widely regarded as a male past time. There’s some deeply ingrained sexism in video games though, which is why I stopped playing any multiplayer games online.
Oh we can still play video games. Its just that somehow the entire gaming world has been lumped in with the small percentage of the bottom of the barrel players that ran folks like Steph away from online gaming. In other words men who play video games is just another subset of men where its actually okay to presume the worst in all of us because of the actions of the few. Aren’t double standards just awesome?
Now to be fair to people like Steph, the industry itself isn’t exactly the most welcoming or openly diverse. Even when it’s not being outright sexist it is often being…heteronormative, but with gender….male-normative? We really need a word for that. Anyway, it treats it’s audience as male-normative, and heck, the AAA games even treat it’s characters as male-normative. I read an article about a woman who was playing the Mists of Pandaria beta and she expressed some annoyance at the fact that all the panda NPCs (except one) were male…even the NPCs that were clearly meant to be female. Now, you say, it’s beta! Things are still having to be ironed out…and yes that’s true. But why wasn’t it the other way around? Why weren’t all the NPCs female and the male ones would be inserted later?
Or how about the Turians in ME…the lovely people at Bioware (and I say this without sarcasm) couldn’t figure out how to make a female Turian model. They had a male model, but they couldn’t figure out how to feminize it…so they didn’t. Which, that in itself doesn’t matter…so it’s a species without sexual dimorphism, big deal. But the point was that their idea of neutral was male and then they were trying to figure out how to make it female-looking….they didn’t start the other way around.
I mean, even Guild Wars 2 (which is one of the first MMO teams to highlight how diverse a design team they have) has fallen into the trap of female cloth armor = skimpy. And I’m not adverse to that…but it’s a bit annoying considering it’s such a tired cliche. Like, come on, they’re so innovative in so much else…but cloth still equals skimpy, and only for the females. And the body shape choices for the female characters are still much smaller than the male versions. That is, there’s less of a difference between big and small. I get that they wanted to go for ‘pretty people’ character models…but then they shouldn’t have given the option of having a massive norn male without also giving the same option for female. SWTOR did the same thing, only worse.
Alright now I’m starting to get a bit ranty, which was not my intention. And I’m not saying any of the above is sexist, because I don’t think it is. I think it’s…yeah…male-normative. It’s assuming that the audience is all straight males (well, and only a certain type of straight male). So yes, part of the judgement comes from making a generalisation based on the bad behaviour of a very small part of the gaming population…but part of it comes from the way the industry presents itself.
I can agree that the gaming industry is heteromale nomative. However as you say there is a big difference between “the industry isn’t really woman friendly with the way it structures its games” and “gamers hate women!”
Difference being the former is a very legitimate concern while the latter is just a broad paint brush that people try to pass off as the former. Because even the heteromale normative nature of the gaming world in and of itself doesn’t automatically equate to “hostile to women”.
So I’m all for extending fairness to Steph, but that doesn’t doesn’t justify the presumptions that are made about male gamers in general.
In short, ” So yes, part of the judgement comes from making a generalisation based on the bad behaviour of a very small part of the gaming population…but part of it comes from the way the industry presents itself.”
The second part is a valid observation worth addressing. The second part is knee jerk emotion being passed off as valid observation.
Agreed. +1 Internet Points.
Fair enough, but aren’t most of the players straight males? Shouldn’t they then cater to the majority of who is playing the game? I don’t really play much anymore because I don’t have time but the girls I ran into were few and far between. It wouldn’t make any sense from a marketing standpoint to cater to them.
I’m actually working on an article about this…it’s just taking me forever. Anyway, turns out actually it’s about a 50/50 split between women and men who are gamers. So the idea that the majority of gamers are men is a myth. Also, even if it were true, a lot of these male-normative practices are appealing to only the most stereotypical aspects of being a straight man. I’ve heard more straight guys say that they find these issues problematic and annoying too.
That sounds like a cool article. I hope that you break it down by game though because I’m sure women like to play different games than men as a genderal trend (see what I did thar?
And I gotta say that I like the way the female characters look.
Not as much as they used to. Apparently women have entered the casual gaming market (The Sims, Popcap games, etc) like nobody’s business. That might mean there would be more spillover into the more “meaty” video games, something like Minecraft I think would be an excellent gateway for women to enter the more hardcore part of the industry. Why should an entire industry exclude women? That’s just more money that they could be making.
“Why should an entire industry exclude women? That’s just more money that they could be making.”
It’s not that they exclude women, they aren’t saying you can’t play. They just don’t cater to women, they cater to men. There are plenty of industries that cater to women and you don’t see men complaining about it. So really, what is the big deal here? Do you expect that every single industry should cater to women’s sensitivities? Because by doing so they will be losing money from male players, cuz I’ll be honest I don’t want to play a game that caters to women.
What do you mean, you won’t play a game that caters to women? What are you expecting, that suddenly Gears of War is going to have a multiplayer option where Marcus goes out to a fancy restaurant with Baird and Cole and they’re gonna have Cosssmoossss and talk about starting up organic farming once the Locusts and Lambent are wiped out?
I’m not asking for a game where everyone puts down their guns and goes shopping or something, or fills some other female stereotypical past time. I’m asking for the female characters to have more sensible armor, and for god’s sake fix the physics relating to breasts, Dead or Alive Extreme 2 was just painful to look at. Would you really spend less money if Ivy was only slightly less naked as she is in Soul Caliber? Would you give up gaming as a past time because the armor for female characters was actually, you know, sensible for combat?
Valve makes very compelling female characters, Alyx Vance was a highly attractive and strong character, and they did that without needing to put her in skimpy or overly revealing clothing. Chell in Portal is the protagonist, and I think she’s very pretty, but again, her wardrobe was appropriate. Do you think that these things really detract from video games as a whole? And why shouldn’t the video game industry try to be a little more open for women? I am very much a gamer, I would like my perspective to be heard by developers too. I don’t feel like video games should be just the boy’s club and no girls allowed.
My other point was that women are starting to play more video games. Albeit most of them are casual games, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t or won’t be spillover. The bigger developers could make a little more money from a mostly untapped audience by making things a little more welcoming to women – mostly by providing stronger female characters that are more appropriately dressed. Also, the communities surrounding the games need to be less harassing. I am a member of such communities, and I expect to be treated like one. I don’t want to hear a string of harassment because I have a vaguely feminine Steam name or gamertag, and why should I remain silent while playing games to prevent people knowing I’m female?
I’m not saying all male gamers are horrible people. I mean jeez, most of my friends are guys, and I have a lot of conversations with them about video games. Usual conversation for me lately has been centered around Skyrim. I’m also doing a whole new run through of Ocarina of Time for nostalgia’s sake… also I’m trying to introduce my boyfriend to one of the best games of all time. Being a huge Valve Fangirl, I love pretty much any game made from them. But I haven’t gotten around to playing Team Fortress 2 because I really don’t want to deal with the few bottom of the barrel players who will ultimately berate me for being a woman, making kitchen jokes, etc. The most I do for online gaming is Minecraft, and luckily I’ve found a server that is friendly and doesn’t harass me. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of doing any sort of multiplayer (TF2, L4D, Halo, MW) because I don’t want to face that harassment.
I’m not saying all male gamers are horrible people.
Oh no I know you aren’t (and thanks for not saying so). The problem is that is the image of the male gamer that is conjured up. The “dude bro” that plays Call of Duty (for some reason it seems like its always Call of Duty, I guess because writers are too lazy to think of another game title) and disrespects women.
I don’t game as much as I used to (didn’t have the money to buy a current gen console) but recently I have started playing PC games now that I’ve started writing for a small online gaming magazine (Gaming Insurrection). In fact I’m wondering what I’ll be playing in preparation for the next quarter’s edition…
Might have to go check out your magazine.
I’m not entirely sure who are the guys that are the harassers, but they mostly seem to be young, immature guys that think it’s okay to make a joke about those kinds of things. Like they’ll be considered cool or funny by harassing the one female in a lobby because “OMG THERE’S A GIRL HERE LOLOLOL GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN YOU SUCK LOLOL *insert suggestion of obscene sexual act here* AND THEN BRING ME A SANDWICH!” Possibly the 18 year olds. Most of the older gamers I meet don’t make those kinds of jokes, unless they’re completely socially inept. (I think there’s about 8 different CoDs out now. Black Ops 2 is slated to come out in November, I think… it’s the francise that keeps giving apparently. Such is life when it’s owned by one company but developed by two completely separate studios) PC gamers tend to be a bit more egalitarian, but there will always be a few asshats around that make life miserable for everyone.
What I learned recently from a GMP discussion about gender is that, actually, in the first half of the twentieth century pink was considered the color appropriate for boys and blue was the color for girls. At some point after World War II, it got flipped around.
So, a REAL conservative ought to embrace pink as the color for boys. It’s what your grandfather would have done…..
Thank you for citing which version of the Bible you are quoting from. That protocol has virtually disappeared, and I’m glad to see someone still using a quote responsibly.
What I learned recently from a GMP discussion about gender is that, actually, in the first half of the twentieth century pink was considered the color appropriate for boys and blue was the color for girls. At some point after World War II, it got flipped around.
yeah, here is the smithsonian article
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html
(also check out the great paleofuture and pastimperfect blogs on that site)
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