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queen's gambit has got me thinking about something I make sure to address every time I teach game design. I often teach teenagers and I ask who in the room would say they enjoy playing games. Girls often say they do not really play games.
I'll mention how there are ways our culture directly tells girls they should not play certain games--what happens on queen's gambit early on. And it happens in really subtle ways too. The way people LOOK at you when you ask to play (some of this is in queen's gambit too)
But a further thing that happens is that as people drop out of games they have been told they are not good at, or which are "wrong for them," they don't always give up games. They play other games. Games that are less hostile toward them.
And the bigger the population of marginalized players in a game, the more likely that game is not considered a "real game." In video games these include "walking simulators," a genre that includes exploration and story but not combat.
But it also includes "casual games" like cell phone games (candy crush, solitaire, etc) which when I ask that same question, "who here plays games, including games on your cell phone?"
Suddenly there are a lot of girls in the room who play games
Suddenly there are a lot of girls in the room who play games
Which is all to say that the process of control of social spaces doesn't just teach people that they are bad at things they may be good at. It doesn't just gaslight girls into believing chess is not a game they can play. But it poisons what they do play. It invades everything
This is just a thread about games but this is happening in all spaces. You can just look at what is not considered real literature for instance and just KNOW that a lot of the people writing it are women, or black folks, or queer writers.
I'm writing this about games not just because I've seen women take up playing chess but because unlike literature, games are treated like a joke BY the people playing games as a defense against any real criticism levied at the culture. "It's just a game" is practically an anthem
So the tools of control change among different disciplines but the goal is always the same. And so you have men convinced they are the best at what they do even though the culture they create ensures they won't compete against many of the people who could unseat them
This is not even getting into how men HATE to lose to women and even those who feel like they are welcoming to women make women feel uncomfortable or unsafe simply by being better than them
Anyway nothing is ever JUST anything. Humans can connect to each other or damn someone with anything we can hold in our hands or minds. Games are not just games. We think with them and communicate with them and learn to be humbled through them. Be good with them, too
