Reductive model of gender and the absence of sexuality

As a scholar interested in genders and sexualities, I am always troubled by reductive and positivist discussions of gender differences. While some generalizations are inevitable in order to make any statements about broad differences between groups of people, they should be accompanied by an acknowledgement of the limitations inherent in that sort of thinking and in the research on which the generalizations are based. No such acknowledgements are present in Ray's text.

In making distinctions between male and female reactions to game characteristics and strategies, Ray is strongest when she reports such differences in context, giving the results of specific market research studies or user tests of specific games. For example, in Chapter 3, "Conflict and Conflict Resolution Styles in Game Design," Ray reports that during focus group testing of a game in 1997 by Her Interactive, developers noted that if a mixed-gender group of young people were brought in as participants and there were not enough machines for everyone, the girls would generally end up watching the boys play instead of asserting their right to have a turn, indicating to Ray that the girls did not prefer conflict and viewed participation as not worth fighting over. Ray correlates this information obtained from participant research with other research indicating that females prefer puzzle games involving indirect competition to argue that female players may be more attracted to games that do not require direct conflict and incorporate skills' tests, like solving puzzles or riddles, into their narratives and play.

While this is persuasive and interesting, Ray's analysis is limited in several respects. Firstly, she bases her analysis on older anthropological studies that argue that women's propensity toward negotiation and compromise stems from their roles as gatherers in earlier human societies; whereas, men, who acted as hunters, developed desire for and skill in direct conflict and aggression. While people historically assumed these roles in some cultures, much has occurred in the interim and attributing the origins of present behavior as the products of evolutionary processes seems simplistic and somewhat dangerous.

Secondly, because Ray's analysis ignores the role of sexuality and heteronormativity in influencing the behavior of individuals assuming male and female roles in relation to technologies, she misses a layer of meaning that could help to further explain the designers' observations in the participant research described above. As Linda Stepulevage (2001) argues, sexuality is just as regulated as gender, and women and girls may feel pressure to perform as female in an unmistakably heterosexual manner. Feminism, Stepulevage (2001) adds, has lesbian associations, thus, in certain contexts, females may attempt to avoid self-assertive or feminist acts, such as demanding equal time to use a computer, for fear of appearing different or as anything but completely heterosexual. Ray makes much of sexuality in terms of sexual appearance of avatars and the sexual jokes aimed at game characters throughout the text, yet she does not mention how the cultural regulation of sexuality may affect players' interactions, or lack thereof, with computers and computer games.

Finally, throughout the text, Ray deals with female and male as binary categories with no mention of the lack of homogeneity within them or any acknowledgement of other positions related to sexualities. If heterosexual women are not considered as a market for the gaming industry, the heteronormativity present within the industry reflected in the narratives set up within the games and the graphics that support them denies the very existence of homosexuality and completely excludes gays, lesbians, or bisexuals as potential targets for expanding the gaming market, for would not individuals identifying as such be equally appalled by many of the attributes of current games that Ray outlines as offensive to women? Ray makes no mention of these issues.