Tag Archives: Gender

20XX: Bleed And The Future Of Action Heroines

  As a child of the 80s, I was raised on bloodshed. Practically everything I did involved the quintessential adolescent male power fantasy, one expressed by countless Arnolds, Stevens, and Jean-Claudes. High body counts, bottomless clips, and an arsenal that … Continue reading →

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The Trouble With We Men

  “Videogames are sexist” passes over my ears no different than “the sky is blue.” It’s obvious. But given the strident hostility towards the women combating sexism (most famously, Anita Sarkeesian) it seems that sometimes the obvious is invisible. And … Continue reading →

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What Is, What Should Be: An Open Letter to David Gaider

Dear Mr. Gaider, The following is a response to your blogpost regarding Trans* characters in the Dragon Age games. Let me begin by stating my position. I am, by all accounts, an unabashed BioWare fangirl and have been since the … Continue reading →

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Close Playing Baldur’s Gate: Still the Same Old Daddy Issues

While Baldur’s Gate’s game play is still clunky — I can’t count the number of times I yelled at my party: “You can’t walk through walls, goddammit!” — the themes it engages with are still worthy of attention, nearly a decade and a half later. I’m not going to drone on about the game play mechanics and how it revolutionized the arena of PC gaming or how the Dungeons and Dragon RPG style is or is not stale. Instead, I want to get at an issue that is important to me as an adult feminist, and how Baldur’s Gate functions as a beautiful example of this: that is, the identity politics at the forefront of the narrative. Continue reading →

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Gender Swaps: More Than Fanart?

by Cameron Walker Alpha Protocol is sort of an underappreciated game. I mean, the gamey part, where you run around and shoot things, isn’t particularly good. I played on easy with the “stand in a room and just pour bullets … Continue reading →

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Mythologizing the Gamer Grrl

by Valerie Valdes You’ve seen a video like it, or a comic, or read a story. Some poor dude is being berated by his girlfriend or wife for spending too much time playing one of those gosh darn video games. … Continue reading →

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