Feminism Wow!

Why is women playing computer games still such a 'joke'?

2011-12-03T13:09:00.000+01:00

Depending on whether you are in computer games and ‘geek culture’ or not, you might or might have not heard about the uproar at a passage of a critique on the new Elder Scrolls RPG, “The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim”. It’s not about people who play Hannibal the Cannibal in the game, which would have been understandable from the point of view of the ‘computer games are evil’ fraction out there. It’s about taking it for granted, at least to a certain degree, that adult women (read: women of 20 or older) do not play computer games – at least no computer games other than casual ones.

This post is not about the uproar, it’s not really about that article, either. It’s a post that wonders why someone would still consider it a given women don’t play computer games. For, you see, to make it a ‘joke’ to claim ‘if you haven’t heard of Skyrim, you’re a) an adult woman or b)…’, you need to believe it’s still a given women aren’t interested in games. Otherwise the poor guy would have known it wouldn’t go over well, especially not with Facebook and Twitter around.

Now, I could pull off a ‘hipster cat’ move and say ‘I did computer games before it was mainstream for women,’ but that would be beside the point. Yes, I did play computer games while most women were not interested in them. I still play them, as my main blog might show, where I did two posts about computer games today. But this is not about me, it is about people who still think women are not playing ‘real’ computer games like “Skyrim”.

No matter which way they came, women have taken up computer games as a hobby for quite a while now. Some started with consoles and made their way to the computer to play more of their favourite games (RPG games, no matter whether single player or MMO, are very popular with female players), some started with casual games and made a jump over to the other ones at one point. They all are playing computer games today (according to some statistics, female players are close to 50% online now, maybe a few percent less offline) and quite some of them are well-informed on what is in the line or out right now. And especially “Skyrim” as an RPG game has been in their line of sight for a long time – so much for women not being aware the game has been released.

Yet men – some men at least – seem to be completely oblivious (or Oblivion? little inside joke) of this fact. Only because most heroes in RPG games are male by default (even if a female alternative exists), some people still seem to think that only men play those games. But if men enjoy creating female characters for MMORPGs, why should women not enjoy a little gender change, too? A character you play in a computer game is merely an avatar, changing with every game. It’s not your only possible online or digital self. I have never had any moral or other problems, playing a male character. I’m sure most men don’t have a problem at all with playing Lara Croft…

If you haven’t heard of “The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim,” you a) haven’t read this post or b) haven’t read this post. Otherwise you will at least be aware such a game exists, no matter whether you’re a man or a woman. Oh … and long time no see, but I promise to improve…

Dear Mr. Dawkins

2011-07-07T15:34:00.003+02:00

Even though I know the chances of you reading this blog are non-existent to very minuscule, I think it might be enlightening to you or any other man to read this. I have read your comments on a blog post at PZ Myers and I have to say it just shows that, religious or not, men still obviously don’t really think about what half the human populace has to go through every day.

You are a very privileged person indeed, you know: you’re living in a ‘first world’ country, you are white, you are a male and you have a good income, making you a person ‘well off’ or even ‘wealthy’. Each of these privileges makes you superior to quite a number of people on this planet. As an inhabitant of a ‘first world’ country, you’re not likely to die young just because you don’t get medical attention or because you won’t get any medicine. You are not likely to suffer from severe hunger, either. As a white person (yes, I know, the political correct term would be ‘Caucasian’, but I don’t give a damn about political correctness), you are less likely to suffer a hate crime, you are less likely to be falsely accused and sentenced, you are more likely to get a good job and you are a good deal more likely to be taken seriously by people. As a person with a good income, you do not have to worry about where you next meal will come from or whether you can pay next month’s rent (if you pay rent at all and don’t own your own home). And as a male, you do not have to worry about the actions of your fellow men the way a woman does have to.

Yes, on the paper women are equal to men in every way in the ‘first world’. Yes, this is not the case for most Muslim countries around the world. But at the same time, just to point it out at the beginning, female circumcision is not part of the Islam, it is an old African tradition practised a long time before Islam came to this place. The other things you pointed out, like not being allowed to work or ever drive a car or leave the house on your own, like the threat of being stoned to death for adultery, are true for a lot of Muslim countries … definitely for all Muslim countries with a fundamentalist government. But paper is patient, as they say in my home country of Germany (another ‘first world’ country). A right on the paper is far from being a right being granted every day in the real world. Yes, a woman in a ‘first world’ country is rather unlikely to be forced to endure female circumcision (unless her family is from a country that practices it and finds a surgeon ready to do it). Yes, we can have jobs, can drive cars, can leave our homes alone and are not likely to be stoned for adultery. At the same time, our world isn’t yours or that of any man, no matter in which country.

You say words aren’t dangerous. Words can be dangerous, but that’s not even the point here. Words can lead to deeds and you, as a man of the world, should know that. While one man might take a ‘No’ after an invitation as it is, think ‘what a shame’ and move on, another might take the same ‘No’ as an insult to his ego and move in to assault the person who uttered it. And there’s no possible way for a woman to tell one from the other in this situation – before the assault happens or not, that is.

For a woman, riding an elevator with a man late at night (speak: at a time with little traffic in the elevator or any floor it might stop at), can indeed be a dangerous situation, certainly one to feel uncomfortable with. You claim an elevator is not an enclosed space, that simply to press a button will solve the problems? First of all, there’s a button that will stop the elevator immediately, even between floors, making it an enclosed space. Second, it doesn’t take a long time for a man to attack a woman and bring her down – travel time between two floors will be enough. Once a woman is down, her attacker is upon her, it doesn’t matter whether or not the elevator door is open. Late at night, chances are that a hotel floor with normal bedrooms and suites will be empty. Chances are even if that woman still is able to scream, she will not be heard. An elevator is an enclosed space long enough for the worst to happen, Mr. Dawkins. And, to be honest, enclosed space is not the only dangerous space … rapes have occurred in parks, on plazas, in the streets, all places that are anything but enclosed.

Personally, I don’t know what is worse, rape or murder. Sure, murder is a very final thing, but that can also be seen as something positive. Whatever is happening to you, it will soon be over. Rape, on the other hand, lasts for a long time after the actual deed … for the rest of a person’s life. And a man, once adult, is very unlikely to be raped at all. Once a man, like you, has outgrown childhood and early teens, has developed a mature body with the physical strength, but also the build it brings, he is unlikely to be raped by anybody. For a woman, no such time exists. From birth (as a lot of sad news prove) to the grave, a woman is always in danger of rape. Rape has nothing to do with sexual attraction. Rape has nothing to do with lust. Rape is about power and humiliation of others. Rape is the ultimate proof for the offender that they are superior to the victim. And in most cases of rape, the offender is male and the victim is female.

And women never feel safe around men, not completely. Sure, for most women, there’s no imminent thread in the close family. But whenever we step out of our home alone (which we are allowed to do), whenever we go to work or drive our car along a country road, we know we’re at risk. Some criminal cases of the past prove we’re at risk even in our homes. There was a man in Germany who climbed the facades of houses, entered second or third storey flats where women lived alone, then attacked and subdued them, tied them up and raped them repeatedly. If you can’t leave your window at least slightly open on a warm night when living on the third floor of a building, just because you’re a woman, where the hell can you feel safe then?

So let’s spell it out for all the men out there … including you, Mr. Dawkins. Certain things which a man may not take as serious at all will make a woman uncomfortable.

You first of all have to realize that being alone with a man they don’t know or don’t know well will make women uncomfortable as a rule. Woman trained in martial arts might not feel as uncomfortable, but I think we all feel a bit nervous anyway. I know it’s highly unfair of us to treat all men as potential rapists all the time, but we operate on the old proverb of being safe rather than sorry.

If you, therefore, want to initiate a conversation with a woman, it would be far more advisable to do it in a public place, preferable one frequented by people. The lounge, the lobby, the bar of a hotel are a much better place for it than the elevator. We are much more at ease in a surrounding in which we are not alone with another person, especially if said person is male.

If you want to strike a conversation with a woman, also refrain from inviting her to your room/flat/house/other dwelling of choice for coffee about a minute or less after you first addressed her. Most women take such an invite as a backhanded way of saying ‘want to have sex with me?’ Maybe we are wrong, maybe you also invite male strangers to your place for a cup of coffee, especially at a conference, just for a lively discussion about the topic. But ‘how about a cup of coffee at my place’ has, I fear, replaced the good old stamp collection as a means to lure someone into your bed.

If you want to spend time with a woman, want to talk to her, maybe get to know her a bit better, therefore approach her in a public place, invite her to a drink (coffee or otherwise) in a public place (a coffeehouse, a bar or what other place you find). Talk to her, listen to her (that is an important point) and make sure not to put pressure on her or make her feel uncomfortable.

If you find yourself in an enclosed space like an elevator with a woman and if you feel the need to talk to her (maybe because you feel uncomfortable with being there, because you’re claustrophobic yourself), make small-talk. Talk about the weather. Try not to stare at her too much, because she might think you’re evaluating your chances of overpowering her or are undressing her with your eyes. Or do what we Germans do in elevators on principles: say nothing. As a comedian here in Germany pointed out once: people rather drop dead because of lack of oxygen in elevators over here than utter a sound at all. But be assured that a woman will not begrudge you a fresh gulp of air regularly, so feel free to breathe while in the elevator.

Most women will not have sex with a stranger they have just met – and those who do normally pick that man up in special places like single bars, not in an elevator or at a conference. We have far more to lose than you men do, for once. Even a condom, the pill or both together are not a perfect protection from unwanted pregnancy … and there’s that annoying thing called sexually transmitted diseases. We prefer to meet a few times, learn more about the other person and then decide whether or not to have sex with him.

Most of all, always keep in mind that even in ‘first world’ countries women never feel completely at ease when in the company of one or more men they don’t know.

On another note, Mr. Dawkins, women do not have to live in Muslim countries to be physically threatened on a daily basis. You might not have heard about it, but rape is a common thing in South Africa, as an example. Women from lower levels of society are raped there quite often, most men think it’s normal to take a woman whenever they want – or that it is a ‘cure’ for female homosexuality to rape a woman repeatedly to make her see the positive points about having sex with a man. Rape is a physical thing, don’t you think so?

Maybe, Mr. Dawkins, it would be a good idea for you to, for once, employ that definitely brilliant mind of yours for something else. Imagine for a while that the world were upside down, that men were weaker than women, that women possessed the same delusion of superiority quite some men still have, that women could rape men as easily physically as it works the other way around in reality. Then imagine you had been in that elevator with a woman and she had acted the way the man has in the real case. Wouldn’t you, per chance, have felt uncomfortable with the whole situation yourself? Wouldn’t you, after hearing stories of sexual assault because of such ‘harmless’ conversations, have worried how the other person might take your ‘No’ in this case? Just think about it, before you use such an example the next time to make a point about other bad things happening in the world.

How often ... seriously?

2011-06-16T16:15:00.000+02:00

How often do we have to go through this, gentlemen? How often do we have to point out that neither social position nor clothing nor anything else ever make rape ‘normal’ or ‘legal’ or ‘right’? And how often do we have to point out that rape isn’t about sex, but about domination and humiliation?

Two reasons for this post. First of all, Mr. Strauss-Khan and Mr. Kachelmann. In addition the reaction to an article about the most dangerous countries for women to be in. The guys first, though.

How is it, gentlemen, that every second newspaper treats the alleged rape Mr. Strauss-Khan committed on a maid in a hotel as a case of extra-marital sex? Mr. Schwarzenegger had some extra-marital sex ten years ago, that much is for sure. The result is walking around today and his wife has left him because of it (though nobody can tell me she didn’t know about it). The thing about extra-marital sex, gentlemen, is this: it’s consent. Both people agree to have sex, even though they’re not married to each other (and might both be married to someone else). This might fall under the headings of ‘amoral’ for you, depending on your own take on morals. It is not illegal, however. Mr. Strauss-Khan coerced a woman into having sex with him, using not his physical power, but that of his position (as a customer of the hotel). Maybe he did use some physical power, too. The point, gentlemen, is this: is was not consenting. This makes it illegal. You see the difference? Or do you want me to spell it out again? Well, here it goes: Extra-marital sex = consent sexual encounter between two adult persons. Rape = non-consenting sex between two people (not necessarily both adult). Extra-marital sex = fun some might consider immoral. Rape = act of violence, always to be considered immoral.

Now, most of you might not have followed the case of Mr. Kachelmann, a former weather anchor here in Germany (and in Switzerland, too). Mr. Kachelmann has been accused of having raped one of his former girlfriends and has been found not guilty last week. Not because there was no doubt he didn’t do it, but because they couldn’t proof he did do it without any doubt. I don’t know if he did it or not, but after the trial, there’s one thing every woman will remember: if you get raped, better not go to the police, because the trial against your violator will be worse than the rape. What kind of message is that to send out?

The second thing that annoyed me? There was an article in one of the online newspapers I read daily about the five most dangerous countries for a woman to live. Apart from a bad medical situation, violence is a very important point for determining how dangerous a place is, obviously. Most of the five countries (all except one) are current war zones, either ‘normal’ war or civil war.

Why do I point that out? Because a lot of those armies see rape as a weapon. Yes, their soldiers do not rape women, because they, individually, ‘want to’, but because their commanders say they ‘have to’. It’s a weapon of war – an act of violence.

Yet one of the comments for the article states the whole statistics is ‘useless’, because it’s not important. I’m pretty sure the comment comes from a guy who never even though about what violence against women can mean. And about how much more dangerous it is to be a woman in these countries (as opposed to being a man, which is also dangerous).

As long as any statistics about the lives of women on this world is seen as ‘useless’ and a ‘waste of time’, you all have a lot to learn, gentlemen.

So, to get back to the question, how long will it take for you all to get it (including that police officer in Toronto going on about women dressed sexy being responsible for being raped)? How often do we have to go through this again, gentlemen?

International Women's Day

2011-03-12T10:35:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know I’m a bit late, as the International Women’s Day is past already … or future, depending on how you see it. It will come again, after all.

What I wonder about when I hear there’s an International Women’s Day, is why. Why is there an international day for women and not for men? Because, one might answer that question, men have their international day every day of the year. It’s still, in many ways, a man’s world out there. Women, despite being half the populace, merely are allowed to co-inhabit it.

All over the world, women held demonstrations during the day, reminding people that they still don’t have the same rights and possibilities than men do. And the reaction of some of the countries shows all too well they’re right.

Logic would dictate, actually, that all humans should have the same rights (and duties) in society. There’s only one major difference between men and women – and that one merely exists so new life can be produced. Men aren’t more intelligent (not on the average, it’s the same for men and women), these days not necessarily stronger or otherwise hugely different. The main difference, one might say, is in the head.

Men think they own the world. The certainly act like it.

Not too long ago, in an article I read, someone explained that men get higher pay-rises, merely because they asked for them in a certain way. A man, that article claimed, would go into his boss’ office and say something like ‘I deserve at least 200 Euros more a month’ and, if he wasn’t too wrong about it, he would get them. A woman, on the other hand, would ask what the boss was prepared to give and accept it (usually far less than she ‘deserves’). My question, after reading that article, was this: How would the boss react if the woman came in and demanded the 200 Euros like the man? My guess: He’d not even give her as much as he would ‘willingly’ give, had she asked. He would still see it as something of a scandalous behaviour if the woman came in and just demanded.

Or another piece of news: some companies even admit outright in a job interview that they pay women less than men working in the same job. My reaction, if it happened to me, would simply be to tell them to shove their job where the sun doesn’t shine, but in today’s work environment, with unemployment being as high as it is, most people will merely accept less pay, if they get a job. Women might be even more inclined than men, because they learn from childhood to be more moderate in their demands.

We’ve come a long way since the first International Women’s Day, that much is for sure. But at the same time, we’ve still got a long way to go as well.

Women make less money

2011-02-28T20:21:00.001+01:00

…and it’s their own fault. But is it?

Okay, back to the beginning. A study I read about today claims that women are making less money, because they are ready to accept less money than their male colleagues. Let’s take a look at this.

In Germany, it is considered rude to ask your colleague ‘what exactly do you get for your job?’ You might ask your friends, but you won’t just ask the guy working in the cubicle next to you. So where does the basic information about ‘fair’ wages come from, for most people? Their friends or relatives who are working in the same or a very similar job. Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that women are more likely to work in jobs that don’t pay well, even if they work in jobs that pay better, their source of information about wages is most likely to be female. So a woman getting less than a man for the same job will tell them what she’s getting. They will think ‘well, that’s what you get in the job’ and use that amount as a target when asking for a pay raise. Result: they make less money. That’s part of my theory.

The study also claims that women are more likely to just accept what they’re offered while men usually have a number in mind and insist on getting it – which more often than not will work, providing he isn’t too greedy. This might be true (I haven’t been listening into the pay negotiations of thousands of men and women), but it bears a question: Why?

The most likely answer, from my point of view, is that men are taught from early childhood to see their own abilities very positively. They are absolutely sure they’re doing extremely well and deserve a lot more money. Women still are quite often taught to be more demure when it comes to their abilities. Is it a wonder, therefore, when women ‘accept what is offered’ while men ‘demand what they feel they deserve?’ Let’s go one step farther, would a boss accept it if a woman came and said ‘I know I deserve at least 200 more a month and I’m not leaving until I have them?’ In other words: if she were acting like a man might? Women quite often are afraid the answer might be ‘no’ and they might be out of a job, should they try it. As it might be a tad more difficult to find a new job as a woman (that old ‘are you planning children’ spiel again), they accept what they’re given and hope it’s a fair offer – which it usually isn’t. Again, that’s part of my theory.

Similar facts might be one of the reasons why women are less likely to get the good and interesting jobs in a company (and more likely to get the strenuous and thankless ones). This, too, was part of the study. And what could be done about this?

I fear the only way to really change all of this would be to change society a good deal. If women learn to be more self-reliant and self-assured, they will be more likely to beat male competition – there are a lot of well-educated women out there. If, in addition, the German school system and the German kindergartens are reformed and it’s no longer required for a woman to be home by twelve a.m. or one p.m. (because that’s when her children will be home from school or have to be picked up from kindergarten), women would not experience this break in their career as much as they do today. They would not have to be absent from work for a long time (and take a part-time job afterwards), could forward their career and, maybe, one day catch up with men (or even overhaul? nothing is impossible…).

Women make less money and, yes, partly it’s their fault. The question is are men strong enough to accept women who are acting like them? Currently, I’m afraid, the answer is no.

Women talking about games

2010-12-03T12:02:00.000+01:00

If you also follow my main blog, you will have realized by now that I do post in a couple of forums. Mostly it used to be the MangaSzene forum (which isn’t used a lot these days, so I’ve stopped checking daily), I also post at the forum of Big Fish Games, but I spent most time at the Diving Bell Adventure Pub at the moment. Not much of a surprise – I’m a moderator there.

The Pub, as it is known to its members, is a nice place, but sometimes also a strange one. All five administrative people in the Pub (owner, two administrators, two moderators) are women. And all people in the Pub have one thing in common: they like computer games. And quite a lot of them are women…

What does that tell us? Well, if you’re buying that ‘women and technology don’t go together’ prejudice, you’re in deep trouble here, from both sides. Five women manage a forum about gaming and most of the members are women, too. Technology on both sides, even though the games in many cases are restricted to what the casual games market offers. But here’s the catch: by hanging out at the forum, some women who have only played casual games before discovered the joy of other types of games like adventures and RPGs (Role Playing Games).

We’re not just discussing casual games and we’re not just discussing games from one portal (like they do it at the forum over at Big Fish Games). We’re discussing computer games. That includes ‘serious’ RPGs like “Dragon Age: Origins” or “Diablo,” classic and new adventure games (like the “Monkey Island” series or “Lost Horizon” – the first very old, the second pretty new), sometimes even FPS (First Person Shooters, in this case mostly “Serious Sam HD”). Sure, action games aren’t discussed there a lot, but given the rather unimaginative background of most modern FPS games (modern war, modern war and … modern war), that’s not much of a loss. (Although I would have liked to share some experiences I’ve had lately with “Burnout Paradise,” an arcade racing game, and “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II,” an action-adventure, with some of the other Pubsters.)

And one more thing has become clear since the pub was founded (about 6 months ago, we have a bit over 200 members by now): being around other mostly female gamers is good for one’s knowledge about games – and pretty bad for one’s bank account. By sharing our thoughts about games, by telling each other which portal carries which new game, by helping each other out when someone has a problem with a game (gameplay or technical side), we have all grown. People who have only discovered the joy of gaming recently (quite some of our members are 50+) and never thought they could master anything bigger than an average HOG or TM game have felt inspired to try their wits at adventures or their clicking speed at RPG games instead of TMs. People who weren’t even aware they were other portals than one (usually BFG) around, suddenly find portals and games they have never heard of before (and would never have discovered, had they stayed in the Pond – the BFG forum). We are in touch with some developers as well.

And, as all forums, it doesn’t stop with the games, the main topic of the forum. Of course there’s always some social space around as well. Jokes (sometimes quite hilarious and sometimes not suited for the underaged), book recommendations, family and pet stories, rants and raves, all have their place in the forum, too. That’s normal for a forum.

Still, mostly women, mostly older people, but from all walks of life. We have accountants and lawyers, workers and housewives. We have people from all over the world, too. That’s the good thing about the internet, after all: where you are doesn’t matter as long as you have a connection. People from different sides of the earth can discuss things online. (Or take over a job, I’m currently stepping in for one of the administrators who needed some time off, doing the daily list of new games at the portals – that’s quite a bit of work, believe me.)

Women talking about games is just as normal these days (or even more normal) as women talking about cooking, housework or handicrafts. And in the future, I hope, it will even be more normal than now.

Wordl Art

2010-08-17T10:46:00.000+02:00

I was a bit bored yesterday, so I went to the Wordl site and got one for every blog I have. This one is for this site:

Interesting collection of words, isn’t it?

Women and Computer Games 2010

2010-08-17T10:44:00.001+02:00

Women and computer games are another recurring topic – for me, at least. As the GamesCon, the most renown computer games convention in Germany has just begun, an article mentioned that computer games weren’t doing all that great at the moment – and that the percentage of women playing games has declined (from over 30 percent to about 25 percent). And this even though the publishers want women to play games!

Well, they want women to play games, but they don’t take them seriously. This, at least, is what it looks like to me. I am not the average woman playing games, as I have been a gamer ever since 1993, when I had the first computer you actually could play games on. I have been playing games from most genres – at least once. I am not very good at flight simulators (well, I do get down, but not in a condition that would allow me to take off again…). I have never had much interest in other simulators (we’ve had loads of those lately, including farm machines, busses and whatnot). My forte are adventures (a dying breed for a while, but I’ve not lost hope yet), RPGs (revived by Diablo and later on Baldur’s Gate) and games in which you build things up (The Settlers, Anno and suchlike – something German publishers and creators are good at). I do sometimes play first person shooters (but not very often, even though I’ve played quite some of the big names). Still, my horizon when it comes to games is much wider than that of most women who have started playing recently. It goes far beyond casual games and “The Sims” (although I love that game and can spent whole days with it).

And, unfortunately, this is exactly where most companies seem to see women. In the small niche occupied by casual games and “The Sims”. Therefore, a lot of casual games seem to be ‘tailored to fit’ women. Romance is a big topic in casual games – even though most of them are not about romance (I’m making amends here for the “Dream Day”, series as it centres around weddings and what comes after that, and for “Wedding Dash” which also centres around this time in a woman’s … or man’s … life). On the good side, so are women who can do things on their own.

But how do things look for women in ‘non-casual’ games? Not very good. I’ve stopped playing first person shooters for two reasons: it never was my favourite genre anyway and I can’t stand the fixation on war. Admittedly, first person shooters are never something for pacifists, but I find it highly enraging that today I either have to play a soldier in WWII or modern days or some kind of alternate reality. I have been playing Unreal (and most Unreal Tournament installations over the years, including “Unreal Tournament 3”) and liked them. But that kind of fps (and the Star Wars fps’ that first aroused my interest – “Dark Forces” and “Jedi Knight”) has long since disappeared in a way (unless for multiplayer gaming, as UT always was). I do not like playing a soldier, so I don’t buy games like “Crysis”, “Modern Warfare” or whatever. The current choice in RPGs also leaves something to be desired, but at least some of them are good (and I’m not going to rant about “Alpha Protocol” here – a game with a control scheme that makes it next to impossible for me to get out of the first building I’m in). Adventures are rare (if you’re not looking at TellTale with their adventure episodes – waiting for the last episode of the third “Sam & Max” season), good action adventures are as well. I do not play online if I can play a game offline, so some of the last games I’ve been waiting for are out of the picture: “Assassin’s Creed 2”, “The Settlers 7”, “StarCraft 2”. I know other gamers (male and female) feel the same way about this.

Casual games have been something of a saviour for me this year. HOGs (hidden objects games) and IHOGs (interactive hidden objects games) aren’t adventures (and the adventures you can buy on the casual sites usually are quite old), but I can make do with them. Then there’s a time management game every now and then and sometimes the odd strategy or puzzle game. Still, it’s not the same. And then there’s the recurring ‘Romance’ topic which I find rather boring (I’ve never been one for romances in games, movies, novels etc.). But there are ‘dark’ and ‘spooky’ games as well.

Why are there less women playing computer games (or at least less women among the gamers)? Maybe because nobody ever took the time to find out what women really want to play? Not all women are that hyped up about romance. Not all women want a love story with every game they play. And some of us like ‘real’ games (as opposed to casual games), but don’t like all that testosterone-driven ‘war stuff’ currently around. Give us first person shooters with a story, for god’s sake, without all that WWII and Special Ops stuff. (Give us a ‘I’ve just woken up in a crashed space ship and a monster is on the other side of the door’ moment like in the first “Unreal”.)

If you want women to play computer games, listen to them. Create believable characters, women with a ‘hands on’ attitude like Flo or her friend from the “Dash” games (“Diner Dash”, “Wedding Dash”, “Parking Dash” etc.). Create more strong women (yes, like Lara Croft, a woman who can kick butt – you can make them good-looking for the boys out there, too). Create games that go far beyond romance and interior design (someone rightfully described “The Sims” as a house building simulation with simulated life as an obstacle). Give us a credit for also being resourceful and able to get along without a strong guy for the rescue. Stop depicting women as the helpless Damsel in Distress in games (it’s bad enough they still do that in movies), give them a main role and let them save the guy for a change.

You want more women playing computer games? Create games they want to play. And listen to gamers telling you ‘we want to play offline’ (while I’m just at it…).

Sexual Harassment - a recurring topic

2010-08-06T11:38:00.000+02:00

What kind of light does it shed on men when sexual harassment still is a recurring topic after years of feminism? Why do men find it so hard to understand that certain behaviour, as much as they like it, is degrading and humiliating to women?

First of all I have to point out that I myself have never been subjected to sexual harassment (up till now, nobody knows what the future might bring). The reason for this might be that I do not look sexy, being overweight. Another reason might be that I do not emit the air of a helpless victim – for whatever reason. But I’m more exception than rule and I know it.

After decades of feminism and female emancipation one should think that men have finally understood that certain behaviour towards women, including touching a woman’s breasts, behind or putting a hand between her legs, are definitely a no-go.

How would they (the men, that is) like it if it were the other way around? I sometimes think it would be a good cure for some people who do sexual harassing, if someone came along and harassed them for a change. Imagine the looks on their faces if a woman just walked by, grabbed their ass and then walked on. Or if she sat next to them in a public transport and simply but her hand between their legs – just to check out the package, you know. Or imagine a group of women whistling and catcalling when they passed them by. I know chances are small that is ever going to happen, but it is fun to imagine it for a change.

And when it comes to rape, a lot of people still seem to think ‘it’s all the woman’s fault’. They seem to forget that rape is, above all, a violation. It’s not a man ‘taking’ a woman, because he thinks she’s so sexy and he just can’t stop himself. It’s a way to dominate, humiliate and degrade a person, man or woman alike (and yes, there are male victims of rape).

In short: There’s no excuse at all for touching a woman (especially at or around the primary or secondary sexual parts) without her permission. There’s no such thing as ‘it’s her fault’ when it comes to rape, either. A no is a no, no matter how the woman looks, what she wears (or doesn’t wear) or how she behaved before.

Wish for children - natural?

2010-06-26T10:21:00.000+02:00

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Is it ‘natural’ for women to want children? This would mean every woman who doesn’t want children (if she can have them or not, maybe due to some medical reason, is another question entirely) is an unnatural monster.

I was watching a talk show on TV dealing with the topic. Some women (young ones, usually) were stating they didn’t want children. One even stated she wanted her ovaries removed, because she was so sure she would never want them. Then there were the usual ‘you’ll see it different in a few years’ people around. And there was one women who had two daughters, but could completely understand everyone who didn’t want them. She even said she was not going to babysit the children of her older daughter, because she had done her job already when raising her own children.

Again and again the underlying theme of the show was ‘every woman wants children sooner or later’. (Some even want them a bit too soon, like the daughter of one of the guests who had her first child at the age of 13.)

When I was a teenager (quite some time ago, I’m turning 36 this year), I already knew I didn’t want a family or children. I could not (and still can’t) imagine myself being a good mother. I’m simply not good with children, I make no emotional connection with them. I see them as something good as a such, yes, but not as something that will feature into my own life.

My relatives (not so much my parents, but aunts and uncles) all said the same thing to me that has been said to the women in the talk show: “Sooner or later you will change and then you will want children.” (“Just as every woman,” because that’s what is always there in between the lines in those discussions.) Well, I’m about to leave the time when I can safely have children (medically speaking), I still don’t want any children. My decision never changed. But I also know I’m part of a minority, most women want children.

Still, the question remains unanswered. Is it only ‘natural’ for women to want children? Is every woman who doesn’t want them by definition unnatural, then? And are humans still bound by their ‘nature’ today?

The Incredibles revisited

2010-05-17T10:17:00.000+02:00

Quite a long time ago (as articles on the internet go), “The F-Word” published an article on Pixar and their movies, claiming they were a) buddy movies (which is right, to a certain extent) and b) cementing classical role models. The best example for the last argument were “The Incredibles”.

Sure, Mr. Incredible and his son get the ‘classical’ superhero powers: strength and speed. But a few days ago, I watched the movie again on TV (there was nothing interesting on otherwise, so I thought I’d give it a try) and realized that the two women in the family are much more intelligent. Yes, at first Mrs. Incredible (once Elastigirl, a long time ago) is housewife and mother, trying to keep the family out of trouble and getting everything done. But once she has to leave the ‘normality’ behind to find her husband, we see she’s been doing undercover work before. She has government contacts (above the Superhero Protection Program they’re all in), she can steer a jet (and I mean really steer it, even with missiles on the tail), she knows how to infiltrate a base. That’s far more than just using a super-elastic body, there’s a lot of intelligence going into that. Her daughter can create energy fields and turn herself invisible (which could, one day, make her a great secret agent, too). And she knows how to best follow a rocket: just use the same coordinates for the second rocket.

So, what about the classical role models? Yes, Mrs. Incredible cares for her family – even more so than her midlife-crisis-ridden husband at the beginning of the story. But is that necessarily wrong? She has three children to take care of, after all. Two of them already have superpowers. (The youngest develops them at the end of the movie.) She wants to play safe, keep them all out of trouble and hide the truth (that they’re not just normal human beings) from everyone around. Therefore she tries to make sure her children don’t use their powers (and her husband as well…).

Her daughter is very shy at the beginning of the story. But then, she’s a teenager and they always find something about themselves they don’t like. She wants to be normal, to fit in and just be like everyone else (while her younger brother wants to show off his powers). Once she learns about the responsibility that comes with such powers, though, once she needs them to keep herself and her brother alive, she grows tremendously. Such growth is only possible when there’s a lot of space for growth. Her brother doesn’t have it, but she does.

The women in “The Incredibles” might fade into background a bit at first (literally so in the case of daughter Violetta), but they have strengths of their own. And only together with them, the rest of the family can be ‘super’.

Veiled Problems

2010-05-07T10:30:00.001+02:00

Over at “The F-Word”, there’s a blog post about the ban on the Burka and similar pieces of clothing in Belgium. The poster rightfully points out that this is, to a certain degree, a ban on religion (or at least the way people live their religion).

In Germany, a similar law has been discussed recently, even though we have little women wearing that kind of clothing here. The reason for this is that those things are only worn in certain countries and we don’t have many people from those countries (and if we have them, they’re mostly looking for a haven, because they’re in danger in their own countries and thus usually no religious fundamentalists).

Why am I talking about religious fundamentalists here? Because, in essence, the demand for women to hide their whole body (which is achieved by this kind of clothing) is usually only found in combination with very fundamentalist Muslims. While the Koran demands women (and men, by the way) to be dressed in a certain fashion, it does not demand of women to completely hide beneath a veil or similar piece of clothing. The same demand to dress according to a certain moral standard also features in the bible and thus in Christian belief.

Many women in Europe perceive the Burka and other full-body veils as a form of oppressing women. It’s not a religious statement to them (although, for many Muslim women it might be one and nothing else), but a demonstration that women are worth far less in Islam and have to live with oppressive measures (such as perceiving the world through a small, netted window all the time). They see the Burka, in essence, as some sort of mobile ‘prison cell’ women are forced into. That is not necessarily the truth, admittedly, but it is seen as a statement fundamental Muslims make about the role and position of the woman in society.

Most of the different ways in which women inside and outside the Islamic world perceive those veils probably come from the little open discussion that is to be found between the (usually Christian) Europeans and the Muslims. We (as European Christians) only see the Burka in use inside fundamental systems in which the women do indeed suffer from oppression and thus associate it with this oppression.

And we (including me on purpose) feel very unsure when speaking to someone or meeting someone who’s hiding her face. In direct dialogue, I want to see whom I am talking to – especially the face. I want to see the reactions to the things I say and how that person looks while she is saying certain things.

In Germany, there is no direct ban on the Burka and similar full-body veils so far. There is, theoretically, no need for it, as we already have the “Vermummungsverbot”. This strange German word (and believe me, it’s even strange for Germans) means it’s forbidden to hide your identity (by means of hiding your face) in public areas (i.e. outside private homes). This ban has nothing to do with Muslims or Islam, it’s been in place since Germany faced the terroristic acts of the RAF during the 1970s. Technically speaking, this law also includes all forms of a full-body veil (especially as you can’t say whether there’s a man or a woman underneath the Burka – though normally it will be a woman, of course).

I am pretty sure the Belgian government does not want to suppress Muslims with the law. They probably think they’re acting against oppression (as the law would give women who are not wearing a full-body veil out of their own will, but because peer pressure or their family forces them to, a good reason to stop wearing it) and maybe they also think they’ll lower the possibility for terroristic acts.

Is the full-body veil a device of oppression or just an expression of belief? This far the question is hard to answer for Europeans.

Nature vs Nurture

2010-04-01T10:11:00.000+02:00

It’s an interesting discussion, actually. Conservatives often argue against equal rights or equal pay for women saying “it’s not a woman’s nature to have a career”. A woman’s nature, at least for those people, still is having kids and stay at home.

Other people claim that certain behaviour is in our genes and if we have the “bad mother gene”, then we can’t help being a bad mother. But is that true? Human behaviour is a complex thing, something we still don’t fully understand.

Is it a woman’s nature to be nurturing? Can women simply be naturally unfit for nurturing? Or is the real truth somewhere else?

Quite often the first argument, “women are only happy when raising kids and staying at home”, is based on “how it was in the beginning of mankind”. We all know the stories about the men going out and killing the mammoth and the women staying home and caring for the kids. Only, recent discoveries topple that picture. First of all, women have not only stayed in the caves, they’ve gathered fruits, vegetables and roots – sometimes the only food the tribe had, as hunting is not always successful. And, in addition, it has turned out there were even women among the hunters. It was down to physical fitness whether or not someone went out hunting and so stronger women became hunters as well.

The “it’s in their genes” argument (“bad mother” or not) is just as strange. If it were in a woman’s genes to care for children, which gene would that be? Every person on this world has inherited 50 percent of their father’s and 50 percent of their mother’s genes. Our chromosomes come from both sides. The only difference in the genes of men and women is the Y-chromosome which only men have. Women have a double X, men have XY. So, where is that gene? Except for the Y-chromosome, every gene a human has can come from both mother and father (women get one X-chromosome from their mother and one from their father). And if the X-chromosome where the one with the ‘mother gene’, then men would inherit it, too, as they get their X-chromosome from their mother. Every other gene a woman could have just as well inherited from her father.

It’s in the nature of all humans to care for their children. That’s biologically important, because the ultimate reason for every species to exist is to propagate. If the children don’t survive, the whole species will go extinct. And human children, being born rather ‘incomplete’ (compared to newly born or hatched offspring of other species), need a lot of care to grow and finally get ready to create the next generation of humans.

In the past, when the only way to nurture babies was to breastfeed them, only women could actually do it. But today most women do not breastfeed their babies – at least not for long. And a man can prepare the milk for a baby just as well as a woman. A man can also change the diapers, read a story to the baby, take it for a stroll in the park and do all the myriads of other things that come with parenthood. There’s no logical reason why it should always be the mother who stays at home.

In Germany, it’s very difficult for a woman to have both, children and a career. In other European countries (France, Denmark and others), it’s much easier. Childcare in those countries is far better developed and it’s much easier to work part-time.

Yet, it makes you wonder. Is the nature of women in two countries who share borders with Germany that much different? My father has grown up at the border to Denmark and knew a lot of people from ‘across the border’. I’ve always lived rather close to the French border. French and Danish people do not seem all that different to their counterparts inside Germany.

It’s neither “woman’s nature to nurture” nor is it a question of “nature vs. nurture”. It’s a question of conservatives vs. socio-biologists. And both are quite possibly dead wrong.

A bitter pill

2010-03-19T08:39:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I spent some time watching a few older documentaries about the pill (yes, that pill). From the modern point of view most thoughts about the pill (from scientists as well as from others) are rather quaint.

There has always been a discussion about the pill. Religious and conservative people have damned it (the Roman Catholic church still does) while feminists and liberals have seen it as a way into freedom (and not just for women). The first official reason for describing the pill was not birth control, but problems with the menstrual circle (a reason why I, too, took the pill for a few years). Later on, here in Germany, it was only described to married women, to lower the number of children per family and give the women some release (as every pregnancy, no matter how well monitored by a doctor, take a certain toll on a woman’s body). By the end of the sixties, unmarried women, too, could get a description. It was a horror for the conservatives and the church in Germany. Women were running around and having sex because they liked it!

Arguments against the pill reached from ‘it’s against nature’ right up to ‘it will create crippled children in two generations’. Against nature the pill might be, but humans aren’t exactly close to nature at all in the industrialized world, are they? It still is not proven, as far as I know, that modern pills (with much less hormones in them than the ones out in the fifties) have anything to do with getting cancer. But then, not much is really known about the reasons why some people develop some sorts of cancer… There are no crippled children around from the use of the pill (that pill, Contagan is a completely different thing).

The change in hormones might have changed the mood of some women in the beginning, but those side effects have been mostly removed by now. The gain of weight doesn’t happen very often, either (I even experienced a slight loss of weight while I last took the pill).

One thing I found rather strange, though, is that some scientists who were against the pill said it would keep a woman feeling like she felt a few days before menstruation (and, women or not, all of you probably know what PMS means, for a woman and all the people around her). I learned at school that the pill actually cheats the body into thinking it’s pregnant. And pregnant women usually feel rather good, apart from some throwing up during the first couple of weeks. (My mother always claimed she never got the morning sickness and the only thing strange happening throughout her pregnancy with me was my foot kicking her belly so hard it actually showed as a little bump sometimes. She then thought she would give birth to a future soccer star.)

Yet the pill is a two-edged sword. While it gives greater freedom to women (especially sexual freedom), it also puts a lot more pressure on young women. Before the pill, a woman always could say ‘I’m not having sex, because I don’t want to get pregnant’, but now there’s the pill and pretty much pressure to take it, so you can lose your virginity early. When I was a teen, the average age at which a girl lost her virginity was around 16, today it’s down to 14 (in Germany). When my mother was a teenager, the age was well above 18. And I’m not sure whether girls should have sex that early…

On the whole, the pill was a good thing for women, but it wasn’t (and still isn’t) without fail.

Concerning "Tomb Raider"

2010-03-10T09:10:00.001+01:00

Ever since the first game that came out in 1996, the computer game series “Tomb Raider” has been discussed by feminists. Lara Croft has been both hate figure and icon – and quite often at the same time. But what is really behind it?

At first, I’d like to tell you something about my own history with Ms. Croft and the games she’s featured in. I’ve played all games so far (even the abysmal “Angel of Darkness”) and I liked them very much (all except “Angel of Darkness”).

The first and foremost argument against Lara Croft is her looks. Yes, she is build a little too good. (Even though in the last three games – “Legend”, “Anniversary” and “Underworld” – she has been recreated slightly more realistic.) And nobody would go exploring the jungle in her clothes. But supermodels aren’t any more realistic in looks, especially if their picture has been through Photoshop.

She also quite often is accused of acting ‘too male’ – which has made some people describe her as a “sergeant major with balloons stuffed up his shirt”. What exactly, though, is acting ‘too male’? Is every woman using a gun (or two at the same time) acting ‘too male’, meaning women can’t fight? Is living the kind of life she wants to live ‘too male’? She’s a rich heiress and member of British nobility, if she can’t live the live she wants to, who can?

The same arguments, though, can also be used to turn Ms. Croft into a feminist icon. She looks good, but she doesn’t give the impression of doing it ‘for the boys’. (I know there’s been a time when you couldn’t wear make-up and call yourself a feminist. But, really, we should be over that by now.) She can fight and is not afraid of going up against men (or monsters … or demons … or gods). She lives her life the way she wants to.

Now I’d like to tell you something about Ms. Croft which not everyone knows. First of all, Ms. Croft was supposed to be a man when the creation of the game was started. But a male archaeologist in an action-packed and mythical adventure? Everyone would have screamed “Indiana Jones lookalike” at the top of their voices. So the developers redesigned the main character and turned him into a woman the called Lara Cruz for a start. Ms. Cruz already displayed most physical traits still associated with Ms. Croft today: the well-shaped figure, the long braid, the basic outfit. But the developers were British and they wanted their main character to be more British, too. So they sat down with a phone book and ran through a list of real names. Lara Croft made it. Ms. Cruz turned into Ms. Croft, but the looks stayed.

I won’t say Lara’s gender and looks did not influence the success of the games. She’s been through 9 adventures so far and the series has run for over 13 years. She has, as one of only a few games heroes, made it successfully from game to movie screen. (Most movies based on video games aren’t very successful.) She has had a long-running comic series. Some of the success may come from the fact that she’s a good-looking woman. But even more of it comes from the great design of the games with their breath-taking and difficult levels. (I’ve replayed the first level of “Underworld” yesterday and gazed once more at the enormous hall with the octopus in the middle of it.) Because those huge levels have been the trademark of the series from the very first part, setting the game apart from other action games of this time.

So, what is Ms. Croft? A plaything for male gamers? A feminist icon? She can hardly be both, can she?

Well, in a way she can. Every main character of a computer game is a plaything for the gamers. After all, it’s the main character you control while playing the game. So, not only Lara is a plaything, so are all the characters of “Street Fighter”, “Mass Effect” and many other games. Lara might be more attractive than some, but that’s not really the point. And only very few game characters have survived in the industry for over ten years. There is Super Mario and there is Sonic – both of which have become icons of the companies developing them. An Italian plumber and a blue hedgehog…

Is she a feminist icon, then? She is a self-assured, attractive and very dangerous person. Fifty or so years ago, nobody would ever have dreamt of such a character. Not a female one, that is. The fact alone that feminists are arguing over her says something: she’s not an ‘average’ being.

When you really get down to it, Ms. Croft is a game character, not a real person. She is a product of feminism and might also be a feminist icon. Apart from that: She’s not real!

Poor Boys

2010-03-08T12:49:00.001+01:00

I’m watching a discussion on TV about Feminism (and its impact on the poor, little boys) while I write this. By now, quite some people bemoan the fact that the new schooling in Germany puts the boys at a huge disadvantage.

Fact is that many abilities wanted by employers today are feminine to a certain degree. The ability to work in a team (without the aggressive competition men often seem to display), the ability to understand another person’s feelings (men don’t admit they have feelings, at least in the past) and so on. Those are abilities that were readily marked feminine in the past, by men who never needed those abilities and thought them a weakness (or something). Now, I don’t think team play was amiss among the hunters in the Bronze Age (some of which, as scientists think today, have been women, too). Nor was it a bad thing for soldiers of any age to have. And team sports wouldn’t work without people working together in a team.

But back to the boys. A long time they had it easy – feminists say –, because they were treated better at school and the whole process of learning was optimized for their needs (it wasn’t, by the way, sitting still and listening is something girls have always been better at). Now girls seem to be on the fast lane, passing the boys by and leaving them behind with bad jobs (or no jobs at all).

But are they really? There are a lot more female students around these days, even in classical ‘male’ studies like engineering. They mostly have the safer jobs (meaning the jobs with less hazards around, usually office jobs). But they also do a lot of bad paid work. And in the heights of upper management women still are mostly to be found as secretaries, not as managers. Women still make less money for the same work, too.

People – mostly men, naturally – now claim that the poor boys who will, one day, have to care for a family, can’t get better job and are inferior to the girls in school. And not, because, maybe, girls simply are better students, but because the school system keeps the boys down. Because there are only women taking care of children in kindergarten and primary school.

But why are there only women caring for children in kindergarten and primary school? Because being a caregiver in kindergarten is considered ‘women’s work’ and most men who study to become a teacher want to work in the higher versions of German secondary school (there are three different types of secondary school in Germany). So it’s not ‘we’re keeping men away from these jobs’, it’s more like ‘there are no men around who want those jobs, so we give them to women instead’. Do not misunderstand me here, I think both jobs, caregiver and teacher at primary school are extremely important jobs. The society, however, sees it differently.

New studies actually claim there’s no disadvantage to a boy who spent his early years with female teachers at all. Just as there’s no disadvantage (or advantage) to a girl who spent her early years with a male teacher (but that’s more difficult to prove, because there are less of those around). The school system might favour girls nowadays, but the strange thing is: it hasn’t changed much during the last forty or fifty years. So why do girls suddenly do that much better?

There are programs for them, those in favour of the boys say. There are programs, alright, but they usually focus on making up for disadvantages or simply opening new routes for girls. For example, there’s the “Girl’s Day” every year which is supposed to allow girls to look into jobs beyond the usual ‘women’s jobs’ horizon. There have been experiments to separate the girls from the boys during various classes (science classes like chemistry, physics or biology), in order to give the girls ‘more room’ to outgrow the outdated idea of women being unable to do well in these classes.

But what about those programs or ideas could actually harm a boy’s education? All the jobs girls get to look into at the “Girl’s Day” have been open to boys for as long as they existed. And just because one half of the class is missing (the girls), the other half won’t do worse than before. Where’s the harm in it for the boys?

Is it, one might ask, the simple fact that girls are no longer kept back? For ages, one of the main principle of education was ‘girls don’t need higher education, because they will marry and have children and thus stay at home where they don’t need it’. Girls from ‘better society’, mostly the wealthy middle class, might study something for a while – either to find a husband or simply to pass time between school and marriage. Those girls usually went for courses in arts like literature, music or art history. They didn’t need to learn something they could earn money with.

Ever since the late sixties and early seventies, since women’s liberation and feminism started up ‘for real’, this has changed. Almost all girls learn a profession these days, many of them will later on, even as married women, should they chose to marry, continue to work, simply to make ends meet.

So what would the solution to these poor boys be? Take it all back? Make sure girls receive less education and are banned (as they once were) from most really good jobs? Wouldn’t it be wiser to make sure the boys understand they need to work as hard as the girls and accept that sometimes a girl might be better than them – without giving up, just because it’s ‘all so unfair’?

Women and Horror Movies

2010-02-28T11:12:00.001+01:00

Through mere coincidence I stumbled over the site “Women in Horror Month” while browsing the blog at “The F-Word”, just as I usually do.

At first, I was quite surprised. Why would someone (officially or not) dedicate a whole month to the topic of women in horror? So I checked the site, read the manifest and soon realized they were actually right, for various reasons.

First of all, most horror stories (movies and otherwise) do not work completely without women. Horror is, to a certain degree at least, always about sex. (Just as it always is about death. According to Freud those two forces don’t exist without another – and at least for horror, this is true.) It’s about the monster (whatever the monster might be, take your pick) threatening the heroine and the hero coming in to rescue her (or not, horror movies don’t have to end happy). It threatens her with death, ultimately, but in the short run those threats usually have some sexual component as well. The vampire, of course, is seducer par excellence. He’s having sex with his (or her) victims without even opening the pants. He brings both, ecstasy and death. The werewolf has a more direct approach, not seducing, but simply taking (in other words: raping) the victims and then completing the act by tearing the flesh from their bones and devouring it. This might be the reason why female werewolves are so rare: our society can live with the female vampire as a seductress, but not with the female werewolf as a rapist (of men, possibly, as it would be far stronger than them). As Stephen King pointed out in “Danse Macabre”, most classical posters for horror movies feature a variety of a simple theme, presenting to us the monster holding an unconscious (and thus helpless) beauty in its arm. (Or threatening her in a way while she wears her time’s equivalent of the most revealing thing you can wear without being called a slut. Ripped dresses are always fashionable in such a situation, ripped night gowns are very popular, especially for vampire movies.)

The logical next step from this onwards is the fact that you only survive in a horror movie (especially as a women) if you are virtuous. That means no drugs, no alcohol and no sex – though Rock’n’Roll might just be allowed. (In slasher movies, which concentrate on teens, both as main characters and audience, the final girl usually is still a virgin.) Women in horror movies thus are portrayed as naive most of the time. They are innocent (whether they’re still helpless in the end, depends on the type of movie, the final girl in the slasher movies has to grow up and become self-dependent to survive), sweet and in need of a saviour. Women who are not virtuous, are either villains themselves (as Dracula’s brides) or get killed by the monster.

In addition, though, women and horror movies go together on another level. Most people (at least most people in the media) seem to think women are not interested in horror movies at all (except perhaps for “Twilight”, but I won’t go down this alley, not this time). I beg to differ, I was interested immensely in horror movies as a teenager and still like watching them every now and then today. I still read horror novels (and can’t even remember how often I’ve read “Dracula” by now). And from occasional talks to other people, I know I’m not the only one.

This idea (women don’t like horror movies) seems to be based on an old prejudice: women are helpless and fearful little things who would be scared to death by anything remotely like horror. Are we? No, certainly not.

Women do write, direct and act in horror movies. Without them, the industry would miss quite something. Women do write horror novels, too (and not just the “Twilight” variety). Yet, they are seldom reckoned as a force in the business, at least not by the media. And if they are, they are usually associated with ‘horror light’ or “Lifetime Horror” as they call it on the website mentioned above. Consider February as the “Women in Horror Month” from now onwards and remember that there’s no such thing as horror without them.