As Nakamura’s article made many references to John Scalzi’s post, the audience of this piece is likely the entire gaming community, especially white male gamers. However, since she makes a call to action towards feminist scholars, teachers, writers, and gamers at the end, this article is also directed towards them.
This article mainly argues that someone of color, female, and/or queer in the gaming community tends to be harassed and discredited whereas someone who is white, straight, and male will inherently be given more positive attention. She also states that while people recognize there is prejudice in gaming culture, they generally don’t care enough to take action against it.
Nakamura wants the gaming community to be aware of the imbalance of power and prejudices there, and she also wants people to actively analyze and try to change these trends for the better. As she acknowledges, awareness itself isn’t enough.
What I liked about this article is that it does a good job of analyzing Scalzi’s post as a whole, going from the message itself to the positions of the writer and audience. Nakamura takes into account how race, gender, and authority in the gaming community played a role in Scalzi’s argument, and she brought up an example on the other end of the difficulty scale with Aisha Tyler. Looking at the evidence, the logic is pretty sound. She also makes the main arguments and use of gaming rhetoric clear, so I feel like I understand Scalzi’s post without even reading it.
When I was looking up gaming-related news and videos on the internet, I noticed that female gamers usually aren’t taken seriously. Also, those who speak up about the issue are often the targets of excessive threats and harassment. The main reason I stay away from online games, especially competitive ones, is that parts of the general community are volatile even to strangers without context. Given the information from this article, I’d imagine the situation is much worse for those who don’t fall within today’s “white spatial imaginary.”
My question is this: why have both science fiction and gaming communities become, or at least started out as, dominated by straight, white, males? I feel like an answer is already there, or maybe I’m missing some detail.
The answer to your last question is hinted at in some of what we have been reading already, and is explored a little more in some of our readings for this coming week. It isn’t a simple answer, but the easiest response is simply that much of culture has been dominated by straight white men – not always in the most obvious ways, but through subtler ‘cultural operating systems’ that not only grant imperceptible benefits to those who fit the norm but also make some kinds of bodies much more visible. There have been women, people of color, and LGBT people writing science fiction for as long as there has been science fiction, but their works haven’t been as widely read or remembered, so many assume they are not there. And when a group or activity appears to be dominated by one powerful identity group, people in different groups are less likely to feel that they will be welcomed or accepted within it.