What I Learned from Playing Lori
There’s been fair amount of discussion in recent years about women in gaming. In feminist spaces, much of it has centred around what happened to Feminist Frequency’s Anita Sarkeesian when she so much as dared to start a conversation about it on YouTube, and think pieces and op-eds abound about the various ways in which women are depicted and discriminated against both in games and in the industry. Women and girls have not just recently wizened up to sexism in games, though. It’s been sitting uncomfortably with many of us for most of our lives. I went the path so many 80’s girls took when they saw pathetic, stereotyped, damseled female characters all around them in media; I tried to emulate the boys. I went with a “if girls are really as silly as they are shown to be, then I want nothing to do with them!” attitude, proudly proclaiming I liked boys’ toys and shows, boys’ clothes and boys themselves (though strictly platonically). I devalued the feminine, not because...
