Sweden Considering Sexism Labels For Video Games

Submitted by Mastodon on Sun, 2014-11-16 07:57

Article here. Excerpt:

'Sweden has become known as a country committed to gender-equality causes, as seen in the 2012 stir caused when the Swedish affiliate of Toys R Us began advertising using gender-neutral toy catalogs that deliberately mixed and matched outside the traditional boy/girl toy schism, or when some of the nation's movie theaters and TV channels began issuing ratings indicating whether or not films being shown passed the so-called "Bechdel Test."

Now, that same attention is being turned to the games industry. Dataspelsbranchen, a Swedish games industry organization, has been given a 272,000 kronor (roughly $36,672) grant by the state-funded "Innovation Agency" Vinnova to study and create a system that would provide ratings for games released in Sweden indicating the level of sexism and/or whether or not the game promotes gender equality. At this time, Dataspelsbranchen had not yet determined whether they would recommend these labels be applied to retail games in the manner of the ESRB ratings or as a "stamp of approval" that game publishers could use in their marketing.'

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Comments

I wonder what the "sexism label" will be for Donkey Kong?

I mean, a donkey with a kong? What's a kong? Something sinister I'm sure.

And the Mario Brothers out to rescue that princess? My oh my.

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Submitted by el cid on Thu, 2014-11-20 00:58

Men are visually stimulated, women are more verbally stimulated.

Porn is images for men that objectify women by distorting sex.
Harlequin is words for women that objectify men by distorting love.

(Tell a boy he is bad for looking at images...tell him often enough, wrap his desires in cellophane and slap him for his interests and he becomes the pervert out of guilt. While women are free to indulge in "romance porn.")

So one has to wonder if they will also rate romance web pages, love sites, harlequin.com, dating services and so on.

Or is it only the "porn" that men like that they will find repulsive.

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Submitted by ThomasI on Thu, 2014-11-20 15:15

I think Farrell basically concluded that romance novels for women were essentially the same as porn for men. But romance novels are okay but porn is not--it allegedly leads to sexual assault. The irony is how often romance novels portray the heroine being overwhelmed sexually by the romantic hero. In real life, we'd call that rape.

Both are fantasies, in that they reflect how we'd like reality to be instead of how it is. But who wants to have a sexual fantasy with too much reality? It sorta defeats the purpose.

It all boils down to a simple cultural meme: male sexuality is bad, female sexuality is good. So we subsidize female sexuality with insurance-provided birth control pills while calling men who have active sex lives "predators."

Who are these women supposed to have sex with? Not every woman wants another woman.

But I'm certain that if the Swedes get their way we'll all be safe from rapacious video games. I mean, Pacman eats cherries--what a perfect metaphor for rape culture. And you never noticed it before because, like rape culture, it's part of the background noise.

I think I need a shot of testosterone--or maybe a good single malt scotch.

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Submitted by el cid on Thu, 2014-11-20 16:05

"I mean, Pacman eats cherries--what a perfect metaphor for rape culture."

I spit the laptop screen, laughing. Shit, now I have to wipe this off.

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Submitted by ThomasI on Thu, 2014-11-20 18:48

I hope you enjoy this... (I feel obligated to share some humor)

I used to think the Wizard of Oz was feminist: all the women have power and all the men are phony.

But, in the end, the Wizard of Oz is just a story of a bitch fight between two women over a pair of shoes.

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Submitted by ThomasI on Thu, 2014-11-20 18:52

You're right.

It's all about the shoes!

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Submitted by el cid on Thu, 2014-11-20 23:28