Team Unicorn

The girls of Team Unicorn just can’t seem to win. They are hot girls and nerds, yet they find themselves rejected by both women and nerds. Team Unicorn’s video Geek and Gamer Girls made its way through the interwebs a few months back and their second video about Zombies was posted just before the holidays.

Despite showing nothing to doubt their nerd cred, the internet has done exactly that. Commenters have accused them of not being “real nerds” because they are attractive, and of using their looks to “trick nerds.” These girls challenge the stereotypical image of a “geek.” They are all conventionally attractive and not afraid to flaunt their sexuality, yet they show their knowledge of geek culture through their writing and videos. Many of them have been involved in other “geek” projects – Michelle was in the popular web series The Guild, and Clare works on Robot Chicken. Yet the internet doesn’t consider these women nerds.

It seems like a lot of this has to do with the old boys club mentality of nerdom. Being a “geek” or “nerd” usually means you like video games, read comics, watch scifi, etc. Women often find themselves ostracized from the geek community, only being accepted if they don’t “act like a girl.” They can be part of the community if they leave their femininity at the door.

These ideals start at a young age. Awhile back the story of Katie, the elementary student mocked for her Star Wars water bottle because “Star Wars was only for boys,” went viral. Many clung to the idea that the children mocking her were mocking her for being a nerd, when in fact boys were mocking her for being a female nerd. The bullies weren’t saying that Star Wars wasn’t cool: it was just cool for boys. Youtuber kirithem examined this same phenomenon of alienating girl gamers, how it’s not just the male gamers, but the entire video game industry.

The women in Team Unicorn are in the unique position of being a new type of geek: a female geek who flaunts both her femininity and her geekiness. This new brand of geek is catching on. Ashley Eckstein started her own company called Her Universe that makes Star Wars clothing meant for women, another example of being proud of femininity and geekdom. As more and more women stand up and proclaim their nerdiness without being “just one of the guys” there is the chance that women will fully be accepted into the nerd community. But if not, women can always create a more accepting geek community of their own.

Video games. Sweet, succulent video games. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day . . .?

Um, sorry about that.

Though my gaming experience hardly compares to my brother’s (who I swear was playing Zelda: A Link to the Past in the womb), I still consider myself a full-fledged gamer, and a darn good one at that.

But what does it mean to be a gamer and a girl? “Teenage boy” and “video game fanatic” are often synonymous, but the same can’t be said for someone like myself. In fact, in her article What Women Want, Aleah Tierney suggests that to be a girl and a gamer is to be “a stranger in a strange land . . . a male-created virtual space.”

Unfortunately, I don’t think Tierney is that far off. According to We need more women in games, an article by blogger Jacob Aron, women represent nearly 38% of all gamers, but only 11% of game developers. But when you think about it, is it really shocking that more women aren’t lining up to work at places like Nintendo, Capcom, and Konami (just to name a few)? Childhood I-want-to-be-a-ballerina fantasies aside (hey, don’t look at me!), women are taught to be practical. *Puts on sarcastic tone* Why risk doing something so math- and science-oriented like developing video games when we should be flexing our natural abilities as helpers and nurturers?

Video game developing just doesn’t appeal to most women (sadly enough), and that’s probably why a majority of the game universe has been molded around puke-inducing male fantasies of macho, gun-totting heroes and exotic, large-breasted women.

Though they make up only 49% of the US population, research shows that 85% of all video game characters are male – and that figure rises to 90% for characters that players can actually control. Excluding race as a factor (which is another issue entirely), male characters in video games are as diverse as ever. They can be bulky-as-heck, gaunt, or average-looking. They can be triumphant heroes, shady villains, or your Average Joe off the street. They can be hunky, intelligent, sleazy, or badass – it doesn’t really matter. There’s no end to the possibilities of what male characters can be.

Expectations for female video game characters, however, are much more constricted. They’re often forced to play the “helpless princess” role, giving a male lead the chance to flex his muscles and “save the day.” Female characters are also constantly portrayed as meek, shy, submissive, innocent, naïve – the list goes on and on. I’ve even noticed that 4 times out of 5, fantasy-game-women are given roles as healers or sorceresses rather than sword-wielding warriors. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with having supernatural abilities (heck, I wouldn’t mind having a few myself), but it makes me think back to the whole “women are supposed to be helpers” theory.

Helpers. Sidekicks. Servants?

Now, for those of you who don’t play video games, I hope you don’t think they’re all sexist piles of crap! On the contrary, there are plenty of awesome, strong women who hold their own against male counterparts (Samus Aran from Metroid and Jill Valentine from Resident Evil both come to mind). But I do have one gripe . . .

Women in video games are always, always, always inhumanly “beautiful.”

Whereas male characters can place anywhere on the scale of attractiveness from “purposefully repulsive” to “god-like,” video game women always have to fall under the latter category. With physiques that make Barbie look average, these characters have impossibly long and slender legs; skinny waists (but wide hips); and breasts that mimic medium-sized watermelons. Just type in “women in video games” to Google Images and you’ll see what I mean!

What the heck? Do you think the people who created these – um – overly-endowed characters just sat down one day and said “so, how big do you think we can get these puppies”?
Because it seems pretty frivolous to me.

I’d say the body proportions of 90% of female video game characters are a huge insult to women in real-life. What is it, video-game-developer-who-lives-with-his-parents, we’re not good enough for you?

Aleah Tierney wrote about her own frustrations when playing Tomb Raider for the first time. The game’s lead (Lara Croft) is often seen as a beacon of female empowerment, but Tierney didn’t exactly see things that way:
“I couldn’t wait to load and play Tomb Raider when it first came out, but when I saw Lara, I just couldn’t take the game seriously. The giant twin pyramids mounted onto her chest look like something she could use to impale her enemies. In many ways her kick-butt presence is a triumph, but the designers’ decision to sexualize her to the point of deformity angered me. I couldn’t get past her proportions, so I put the game away. I’m waiting to see if Lara (or her designers) will evolve in future versions of the game.”

I don’t think Lara’s changing anytime soon, pal. In fact, video games are becoming more and more sexualized as time goes on – and as kids (people in general, actually) are becoming de-sensitized to staggering levels of violence and sexualization in all areas of the media, I don’t see conditions improving for video game gals anytime soon.

It’s kind of funny, actually. I can play the bloodiest, goriest games ever – the kind with chainsaws, zombies, and flesh-eating dogs – and they don’t bother me a bit. Why? Because killing zombies is hardly something I’m going to pick up as an actual hobby (and I don’t foresee a People for Zombie Rights group anywhere in the near future, so I’m not offending anybody by takin’ them out). But the gender stereotypes and hypersexualization in games? That affects us. And it sucks. It really, really sucks. Because no matter how kickass a female character is – like I said before – as soon as you type her name into Google Images you’re going to be bombarded with twenty pages of fan art of the woman flashing her (mutant) breasts. It’s degrading.

So I’ll be sticking to my survival horror games, thank you very much, because zombies don’t care if you’re male or female – or whether or not you have gargantuan jugs – they’ll try to eat your brains either way

Are you a female gamer? Check out this site for support.

Danielle B also writes for Experimentations of a Teenage Feminist

good times

I am a geek and have been since I was young. Like many of us here on the internet, I say this with a hint of pride. That kid who stayed at home playing Super Mario Bros. and reading the encyclopedia? Yeah, that was me. Knows every anime to hit America since 1995? Also me. Can recite multiple episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series? You get the point. But geekdom is not always the shining Mushroom Kingdom we make it out to be. Like every group, we have our share of misogynist douchewads. for instance, let’s look at one of my earliest hobbies, video games.

Before the ragestorm hits let me say: I AM BY NO MEANS DISSING GAMING. I am a gamer. I specialize in a genre frequently criticized by feminists: fighters. Many of my happiest memories involve Soul Calibur IV and my boyfriend yelling, “What? NO!” while I laughed triumphantly. But loving games does not stop me from seeing flaws in them. I remember one or two games from my youth in which there were only two female characters, both scantily clad and completely useless. While women in video games are still wearing next to nothing and modeled like Playboy models from the planet Mammillary (I’m looking at you, Dead or Alive), they’ve come a long way. I remember playing Tekken knock-offs in which the female characters were fast, but did almost no damage. It wouldn’t have bothered me if it were only a one or two female characters, but no, ALL women fighters are fast but not strong. Because strong girls would have to have muscles and as we all know, “Muscles on chicks are nasty, bro.” Which explains why the gamers of the world are disgusted by Chun-Li. Ok, I can’t even be sarcastic about that. I’m sorry, Chun-Li, we all love you and your strong, muscular legs.

WOW

Now, fighters aren’t responsible for ALL the chauvinism in the industry. Let’s look at World of Warcraft. WHAT THE HELL DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET ARMOR THAT COVERS MY FREAKING TORSO? One would think that instead of wearing metal bras onto the battlefield, my Night Elf Warrior would get some armor that covers, oh, I dunno, her vital organs? Don’t get me wrong, I love boobs. But when I’m in the middle of a raid, the last thing I’m thinking is, “Aw, geez. I hope my character’s boobs are well supported and perky.” No. I’m hoping those ogres back there don’t club me to death. And don’t even get me started on the arrogant veQ* that graces the servers. Go to any server and say anything. Once they hear a female voice, the chauvinist veQ will emerge from the shadows. Be prepared to hear anything from insults about how horrible of a gamer you must be (alarming amounts of people believe that women are terrible gamers who only play Nintendogs) to pleas for pics and your email address. I am not in Azeroth to join in a flame war or find my soulmate; I’m here to do battle.

Finally, we need to examine the FPS (first person shooter). Yes, I realize Samus Aran from Metroid is a fully clad woman. And I love Samus. When I was eight, I wanted to be Samus. But there is a huge lack of Samus Arans (or any playable women, for that matter) in the FPS world. Let’s look at the Halo series. There are no women in battle for the first three games. There are women in the game, but they seem to disappear as soon as the shooting starts (or they are the creepy AI that I still have vaguely erotic nightmares about). So, I was excited when I heard that there was a woman in combat in Halo:ODST. A strong woman! And I get to play as a soldier? I’ll be able to make a superbad female soldier! Right? No. That “strong woman” I was hoping for is repeatedly objectified and disrespected by the troops under her command and completely incompetent. And I can only play as a man, because apparently women can’t be soldiers in the future. Way to fail the female gaming community, Bungie.

In conclusion, we the geeks would like to announce that we’ve found a few bugs in human nature. We are currently working on a patch to fix it so please be patient.

*veQ: translates to garbage or filth, for those of you who don’t speak Klingon.