Feminist
Pro-Queer
Anti-Racist
Gaming

If we think about who we are as individuals, there are myriad of ideas that pop into our heads. It is difficult, if not impossible, to come up with one unifying concept or theme to describe our personhood. We may even take offense if someone were to try to sum us up in a word or phrase, feeling that they are reducing us to a shallow representation of ourselves. Using this thought, we can better see the reality of oppressions. The disenfranchised people of the world are often reduced in just this way. People are handed labels throughout their lives which can work to reduce them to a set of traits based on assumptions packed with prejudice and stereotypes. What prejudices does a black lesbian, for example, suffer from? Can we say that her identity can be broken down into black/woman/queer? Further, can these categories be assigned different levels of relevance in her life? That is, can we claim that she faces struggles more as a woman than as a “non-white” or as a lesbian? Which oppression matters most? This is a question which can never be answered because all systems of oppression work in conjunction with each other.
Feminist theory has struggled to address these issues. Complaints have (quite rightfully) been lodged against much of early feminist theory regarding the dominance with which white, heterosexual, mid-to-upper class feminist issues have been addressed while issues outside of these were largely ignored. Here I want to give a little history of the feminist movement and the notion of interlocking oppressions. I also wish to help clarify the nature of oppression and privilege which feminist theory is positioned to combat. In explaining these issues, I hope to make clear the exact purpose of this website. In making this website, I am faced with many of the challenges inherent in feminist theory. And, with these issues in mind, I will be first to admit that the goals of the site are lofty and there will be difficulties in staying entirely true to this mission as there exists a vast number of differences in experiences of oppression and privilege.
To say that people are different from one another is to state the obvious. We clearly possess many different traits and are shaped by many different experiences. In feminist theory, the idea of human difference has been applied to the experiences of people within different groups. This group concept of difference, according to McCann and Kim (6) was first used in feminist theory to describe gender differences, but then came to be used by women of color to call attention to differences within women’s experiences. It is also applied to "[disrupt] the very notion of a stable identity, arguing instead that identity positions are multiple, fragmented, and mobile” (6). That is, an individual’s identity cannot truly be broken down into a neat and tidy static self. Many feminist theorists emphasize the multifaceted nature of identity and the differing experiences of oppression to “unsettle the notion that race, nation, class, sexuality, or gender can be treated as independent categories" (7). They further explain that:

There are dangers in treating race, nationality, class, and sexuality as if each category captures some perfectly shared common experience or identity. […] Furthermore, in treating one factor as the principle focus of analysis, important interactions with simultaneously present other factors can easily be obscured or misconstrued. (148-149)

bell hooks, an influential African American feminist theorist, has poignantly addressed this issue. She explains that:

A central tenet of modern feminist thought has been the assertion that “all women are oppressed." This assertion implies that women share a common lot, that factors like class, race, religion, sexual preference, etc. do not create a diversity of experience that determines the extent to which sexism will be an oppressive force in the lives of individual women. Sexism as a system of domination is institutionalized but it has never determined in an absolute way the fate of all women in this society. (5)

The Combahee River Collective (CRC) share hook’s sentiment. They describe themselves as a:

Collective of black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974. […] We are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. (164)

Difficulties have arisen for them in their work in separating race, class, and sex oppression as "in [their] lives, they are most often experienced simultaneously" (166) and they fight to address a "whole range of oppressions" (168).
hooks adds that U.S. feminism began to focus on global oppression, thus contributing to a wider range of oppressions being addressed. This, however, was also laced with similar near-sightedness for, as she explains:

This was a major contribution to feminist struggle [but] in their eagerness to highlight sexist injustice, women focused almost exclusively on the ideology and practice of male domination. Unfortunately, this made it appear that feminism was more a declaration of war between the sexes than a political struggle to end sexist oppression, a struggle that would imply change on the part of women and men. […] Fundamentally they argued that all men are the enemies of all women. (33, original emphasis)

"All men as the enemies of all women" is a notion that I do not wish to follow in the design of this site as I don’t feel it is a terribly useful starting point.
Part of this lack of utility has to do with what privilege and oppression entail. Privilege is, as I take it, the more invisible side of the "isms". Privilege is something that happens to such a pervasive extent that we don’t have to acknowledge (and, indeed, might not even see) that we’re benefiting from it. As Johnson explains, being a white American means not having to think about privilege. Further:

We could say the same thing about maleness or heterosexuality or any other basis for privilege. So strong is the sense of entitlement behind this luxury that males, whites, and others can feel put upon in the face of even the mildest invitation to pay attention to issues of privilege. 'We shouldn’t have to look at this stuff,' they seem to say. "It isn’t fair."(25).

Oppression is a horn on the same beast. It is the slightly more visible side of the "isms", though, we may not always see it; I would argue that oppression as a potentially invisible force stems from privilege, and the definition of oppression that Johnson offers up runs concurrent with this:

For every social category that is privileged, one or more other categories are oppressed in relation to it. The concept of oppression points to social forces that tend to 'press' upon people and hold them down, to hem them in and block their pursuit of a good life. Just as privilege tends to open doors of opportunity, oppression tends to slam them shut. (39-40)

Therefore, it isn’t that men are the enemies of women, that whites are the enemies of people of color, that heterosexuals are the enemies of bi/homosexuals. Merely, we all experience the world based partly on these differences in "identity." Our experiences will differ accordingly and living outside of a certain position makes it much easier to deny the existence of these differing experiences. It is because of this that I do not find utility in making an enemy of the allegedly opposite. Setting others up as enemies simply keeps them from acting as allies. It is with the theories of hooks, CRC, Johnson, and others like them in mind that I weave this website (as I said, my goals are lofty). Video games are the source of my dissent because of my love of them as well as my occasional discomfort, even anger, with them. It isn’t difficult to privilege and oppression at work in video games. Portrayals of women, of people of color, of GLBT, of anything outside of the white-hetero-male-norm (and even inside that norm) can reach the extreme ends of stereotypes and prejudices. That is, when portrayals of women and minorities occur at all. A study by Children Now found that females accounted for only 17% of total characters in video games. In fact, non-humans outnumbered females (12). They also found that 56% of all human characters studied were white, 22% were African American, and that Asian/Pacific Islanders constituted 9% (22). Further, these systems of oppressions and privileges intersect. The same study found, for examples, that “African American females were far more likely than any other group to be victims of violence” (23) and that Latina characters were completely absent.
Many would likely claim that video games exist only for recreation and have no impact on, or base within, reality. I believe, however, that a distinction between video games and real life is a false distinction. Video games exist as a part of real life. They are a very real reflection of the privilege and oppression outside of the pixilated world, serving as a reflection of popular culture with an even more direct connection to the "powers that be" in game design. Additionally, they can provide the basis for further stereotyping. As Leonard quotes a discussion of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from the white supremacist website, Stormfront.org,:

But for those of you who have played it, have you seen how much of our point it stresses. You run around and you shoot people, you can go in peoples houses and steel tv’s, vcr’s, stereos, etc…In my opinion, this is one of the greatest games around. It blatantly show how the negroes have corrupted our society. (87)

While it will be difficult to accomplish all of these goals with perfect clarity, I believe that it our responsibility to look outside of our own comfort zones to see what issues exist outside of our own experience. Although this site may not be perfectly able to address all issues of race, class, gender, GLBT, etc, that arise, it will serve to work toward the fulfillment of this goal. So, while this site may not change the world, it will (hopefully) contribute something toward that end. As Johnson ends, so will I:

The human capacity to choose how to participate in the world empowers all of us to pass along something different from what’s been passed to us. With each strand of the knot of privilege that we help to work loose and unravel, we don’t act simply for ourselves, we join a process of creative resistance to become part of the long tradition of people who have dared to make a difference – to look at things as they are, to imagine something better, and to plant seeds of change in themselves, in others, and in the world.(171).