Rants of a Gamer Girl: Kotaku’s Woman Problem
The image above was created with a sample of recent post titles, and the comments I found on those posts.
Gawker has 8 different blogs, each with a different focused topic. Â Kotaku is Gawker’s gaming blog, and it’s little surprise that they also have a bit of a problem when it comes to women. Â While in recent months the site has semi-frequently posted about the issues that women in gaming face, and the misogyny that’s usually allowed to run freely, their comment moderation shows a serious case of hypocrisy on the part of the editors.
While men are the majority of Kotaku’s writers (they compromise the entire daily editorial team), there are two female contributors who write occasionally for the site. Â A majority of the comments on the bios of Leigh Alexander and Lisa Foiles comment on their looks, or belittle them for constantly drawing attention to the fact that they’re female. Â (Interesting side note – neither woman writes the posts that deal with gender issues in gaming – these pieces are almost exclusively written by the all-male editorial team mentioned above.) Â A comment on one of the women’s bios included a death threat which was visible for months before it was finally removed, and the user banned.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many options for gathering gaming news that doesn’t also include having to read through sexist drivel. Â IGN, Joystiq, and Destructoid all have the same problem. Â However, while a site like Destructoid makes a mockery of a petition against Duke Nukem, Kotaku asks why girl gamers don’t get respect, then retweets someone who reduces one of the female staff members to her breasts. Â Oh, and the featured comment on one of the women’s latest posts was “Tits! Nice!” Â Talk about a hostile work environment.
No matter what is written, no matter the topic, the focus always becomes their appearance.  On every one of Lisa Foiles’ recent posts, the majority of comments are sexually harassing, threatening, belittling, and just plain cruel.
Kotaku wants to draw attention to women’s issues in gaming and hear our thoughts but provide nothing even slightly resembling a safe space for us to do so.  If they are promoting comments that reduce their female staff to their cup size, why the hell would I want to register for an account to contribute to the discussion of “I’m An Anonymous Woman Gamer“?
My guess for the reason behind this completely contradictory attitude is that if they remove comments and ban users who contribute misogynistic comments on a daily basis, their readership will suffer. (Something that I don’t think any Gakwer blog is willing to risk after the redesign.)
Kotaku’s own commenting guidelines claim, “…break the rules, get off topic, start calling names, and you’re going to get banned.” Â However, with a complete lack of enforcement, the “guidelines” are joke, and utterly worthless.
The really funny thing? Is that Kotaku has claimed in the past that it has always tried to fight the ‘boy’s club’ atmosphere of the gaming community ( http://pensiveharpy.blogspot.com/2008/02/kotaku-vs-boys-club-lol.html ). lol.
Comment by Pai — September 25, 2011 @ 3:06 pm
The problem is not Kotaku, but the industry as a whole. The day the video game industry giants decide “booth babes” no longer fit with an advancing and fair-minded culture, the role of women in the game industry will always suffer. Of course, it would help if we actually lived in an advancing and fair-minded culture, but I digress. Anyway, here’s one man who appreciates your position and hopes the game industry, both male and female participants, will actually stop and think before acting foolishly (I’m looking at the recent Rachel scandal involving Resident Evil Revelations as well as the misguided Metroid Other M articles accusing the game of blatant woman bashing – my wife, not a regular gamer but an educated women holding a degree in women’s studies, can’t understand the outcry against this game – she watched me play it and saw the attached film).
Comment by D1Z — September 29, 2011 @ 4:34 am
>”2.The problem is not Kotaku, but the industry as a whole. The day the video game industry giants decide “booth babes†no longer fit with an advancing and fair-minded culture, the role of women in the game industry will always suffer.”
Oh, protesting Kotaku is a waste of time! I should have gone to protest booth babes instead. Thank you for using your privelege as a man to set the agenda for us gaming women!
>”I’m looking at the recent Rachel scandal involving Resident Evil Revelations as well as the misguided Metroid Other M articles accusing the game of blatant woman bashing”
Oh, women should actively like Resident Evil Revelations and Metroid Other M? Thanks for letting women know they’ve been wasting their time complaining about it when the games are actually awesome!
Comment by Lavenger — October 7, 2011 @ 1:12 pm
So true about Lisa. I know someone who works for another site where she was hired. The higher ups there told her basically to talk and wear less. And she did. She’s the worst.
Comment by H — November 7, 2011 @ 9:15 am
As earnest as you are to be offended, Kotaku does moderate pretty well. You should check out the cornfield after an article about women goes up. They can’t catch everything, nor should they because covering the issue up through moderation isn’t going to solve the problem.
Comment by Jake — May 8, 2012 @ 5:26 pm
The majority of the gaming community makes me hate that I really love to play video games.
I don’t know where the entitlement comes from, but I don’t get it, I hate it, it makes those sites unenjoyable for me.
Sure Lisa Foiles is super pretty, but she also loves games, is pretty damn intelligent and a decent actress. I used to have a lot of friends on destructoid until Anita Sarkeesian came along and I thought what she was doing was cool.
I will forever be a “white knight fag” over there.
Comment by kzzle — February 15, 2013 @ 1:59 pm