[Release Date: February 15, 2022] Do men and women see the role of fun or leisure in their life differently? How does this translate to their gaming habits? Can playing like a feminist help bring about gender equality of leisure time? What are gaming circles and how can they help?
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
18
00:02:02.640 –> 00:02:10.860
Shlomo Sher: chess is an associate professor of entertainment and media studies at the University of Georgia, she is the author of play, like a feminist which is really what we’re going to.
19
00:02:11.280 –> 00:02:23.190
Shlomo Sher: focus on today and ready player to women gamers and designed identity her work explores how video games are designed for and marketed to women audience and larger themes of leisure disparities.
20
00:02:24.210 –> 00:02:26.850
Shlomo Sher: Can first of all, she wrote, welcome to the show.
21
00:02:27.510 –> 00:02:28.710
yeah.
22
00:02:29.910 –> 00:02:40.680
Shlomo Sher: laser laser disc what are larger themes of leisure disparity, so this essentially how let’s say different genders tend to enjoy their leisure time is that the idea.
23
00:02:41.130 –> 00:02:53.730
Shira Chess: Sure, I mean like Sir that’s more or less where it started and, like my perspectives on this before and during I guess I shouldn’t say after but during the pandemic have have also continue to shift and but um.
24
00:02:54.690 –> 00:03:09.000
Shira Chess: early on in my research, when I was sort of still working in the PhD part of when I was long before ready player to one of the things that really began to strike me was the way casual games are designed.
25
00:03:10.440 –> 00:03:23.940
Shira Chess: versus the way that the research that has been done on women’s leisure in general right like how that that research on women and leisure, you know kind of.
26
00:03:24.570 –> 00:03:38.130
Shira Chess: field that you know feminist leisure cities, was a field that that began around the 1980s, or so um where it was sort of there was a lot of discussion about how women’s leisure tended to be.
27
00:03:39.240 –> 00:03:46.440
Shira Chess: Things that could be done in shorter snippets of time or like things that things that were meant to fill all.
28
00:03:47.340 –> 00:03:53.010
Shira Chess: allowable time right so things that can be done short time or longer periods of time, depending on where you are at right.
29
00:03:53.820 –> 00:04:11.220
Shira Chess: things that were cheap or free things that were easy to learn and sort of easy to entangle or disentangle yourself from and and often had like themes of productivity and I was really struck with the fact that casual gaming really emulated those patterns.
30
00:04:11.370 –> 00:04:21.420
Shira Chess: So specifically right, I mean most casual games really almost exactly fall into that definition of a women’s leisure and well casual Games were not necessarily.
31
00:04:22.530 –> 00:04:36.060
Shira Chess: automatically meant for women audiences there was definitely the sense that women were one of the primary target markets, and so a lot of my early work was really interrogating this disparities and thinking about how.
32
00:04:37.170 –> 00:04:42.360
Shira Chess: How our leisure practices are acculturated how we’re we’re taught to leisure in certain ways how.
33
00:04:42.780 –> 00:04:56.220
Shira Chess: We teach ourselves to leisure in certain ways and then increasingly I mean when I think about leisure and equality and plan a quality, I mean it’s really you know it’s so much more intersections in that, because the reality is that.
34
00:04:58.290 –> 00:05:09.750
Shira Chess: If you’re working two jobs and are full time parent and are you know and and also or woman you don’t have leisure time.
35
00:05:10.950 –> 00:05:15.090
Shira Chess: Like at all right, and so there was a right, like, I mean it is.
36
00:05:17.160 –> 00:05:27.510
Shira Chess: It is condescending of us to say, well, you should play more games to somebody who doesn’t have that space in their lives, so I mean largely I think about leisure as an issue of equality, I think about it as.
37
00:05:27.930 –> 00:05:29.040
Shira Chess: a space where.
38
00:05:29.430 –> 00:05:36.300
Shira Chess: You know, as feminists We talk a lot about equality and all different kinds of spaces in terms of bodies in terms of.
39
00:05:37.560 –> 00:05:48.120
Shira Chess: autonomy in terms of workplaces and all kinds of issues of gravity, but often we don’t take that step back and ask yourself the question well, what about issues of leisure, what about.
40
00:05:49.350 –> 00:05:51.000
Shira Chess: Our are we all getting.
41
00:05:52.260 –> 00:05:58.020
Shira Chess: Quality leisure in our lives, and that is, I think, an issue of you know a great importance.
42
00:05:58.560 –> 00:06:05.790
Shlomo Sher: It is really interesting that you know until I read at least you know part of the book, I never really thought of.
43
00:06:06.270 –> 00:06:16.500
Shlomo Sher: The fact that men and women, how I always know men and women have fun in different ways, but I didn’t think they were qualitatively different you know, I was thought, maybe it’s just.
44
00:06:16.890 –> 00:06:31.920
Shlomo Sher: You know they’re interested in different things, but I never thought about the let’s see so in your book, you say that the playful is political right I don’t is this is this going to count as a wrestler we used to think of playing simply as just.
45
00:06:31.920 –> 00:06:37.080
Shira Chess: fun, I just want to ever Before I respond to that he want to respond to one other thing.
46
00:06:37.170 –> 00:06:37.920
Shira Chess: So I don’t.
47
00:06:38.010 –> 00:06:41.970
Shira Chess: know that men and women do have qualitatively different leisure experiences so much as.
48
00:06:42.150 –> 00:06:45.780
Shira Chess: Our culture rated to see leisure differently right like.
49
00:06:45.960 –> 00:06:58.080
Shira Chess: In in our culture’s we talk about leisure in different ways, you know what early on in my when it was originally when I very early on, when I was i’m a PhD student.
50
00:06:58.800 –> 00:07:05.190
Shira Chess: I used to drive my mother crazy used to call her and i’m like well what would it take to make you play a video game What would it take what would it take one day she she was like I don’t.
51
00:07:05.880 –> 00:07:11.580
Shira Chess: have it in a shopping game and i’m like that, but that really struck me right, like that.
52
00:07:11.970 –> 00:07:20.160
Shira Chess: That this idea of you know consumerism as leisure is is both bizarre and also really acculturated into our lives, you know when you when you watch.
53
00:07:20.370 –> 00:07:29.190
Shira Chess: TV commercials you see commercials of women on hunt for Bergen right and that’s that’s considered this leisure activity, you know weird sense of it.
54
00:07:29.400 –> 00:07:47.820
Shira Chess: So I think that a lot of like sort of my early work was was grappling with that it’s not necessarily that you know men are from Mars, women are from Venus so much as we’re taught certain things were taught to were infiltrated in certain ways and we emulate those practices often.
55
00:07:49.650 –> 00:07:52.140
Shira Chess: But we’re not like different.
56
00:07:52.290 –> 00:07:59.310
Shira Chess: A fairly and there are men that that that like casual games and that that like productive leisure in their women that.
57
00:07:59.340 –> 00:08:00.840
Shira Chess: And like nothing.
58
00:08:01.080 –> 00:08:15.810
Shira Chess: So right exactly I mean, I think that it’s it’s Messier than I think the enculturation i’m alive allows for sometimes but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s still not there and it’s still not an expectation that’s built into how we do things.
59
00:08:16.110 –> 00:08:27.210
A Ashcraft: Do you think that, like say telling women that that that women like to shop as much like Thomas iron like getting all this friends to paint the fence for him.
60
00:08:28.800 –> 00:08:32.160
Shira Chess: I mean you know I from a capitalist perspective sure.
61
00:08:33.450 –> 00:08:37.410
Shira Chess: I mean there’s there’s a long history of sort of like of.
62
00:08:38.550 –> 00:08:48.000
Shira Chess: of consumer spaces telling women that they like to shop right like that that is a pretty robust history, women have long been the primary shoppers in most sort of.
63
00:08:49.080 –> 00:08:54.390
Shira Chess: Standard households right like that that is a construction that has been going on for a long time now really since.
64
00:08:54.990 –> 00:09:06.810
Shira Chess: You think around the 40s or so that was that was or maybe before, but the ones that i’m thinking of the some of the early ones really came from that period, so I mean like that that’s long standing.
65
00:09:07.350 –> 00:09:21.120
A Ashcraft: yeah it interestingly, I only just recently read something about the history of department stores and there and they’re also tied directly to this they’re directly tied to when women became the primary shoppers.
66
00:09:21.570 –> 00:09:25.140
Shira Chess: Of the fam right right exactly and so and there’s.
67
00:09:26.280 –> 00:09:34.200
Shira Chess: also studied some advertising for video games and I I always am amused when it gets reflected in advertising and there’s one ad that I really liked.
68
00:09:35.160 –> 00:09:51.060
Shira Chess: from several I think was from about 2014 or 2015 something like that that was a game stop ad and it was it was Christmas ad and it starts off where it shows, and I talked about it in ready player, too, but it shows a woman like middle aged white woman.
69
00:09:52.200 –> 00:10:00.000
Shira Chess: You know in business casual clothing driving in her minivan and as she’s driving home the there’s like.
70
00:10:01.230 –> 00:10:14.760
Shira Chess: The van is like something low rider style and like she’s passing by various people and, like she gives somebody gang sign and like she gives a dirty look to a cop, that he passes by and then in the end, she like pulls into your driveway in.
71
00:10:15.120 –> 00:10:26.220
Shira Chess: Like you know white has white picket fence kind of drive way and the end then opens up the back of her car and there’s like a ton of games stop games all through the back, and if they.
72
00:10:26.910 –> 00:10:35.730
Shira Chess: The tagline is roll home fat this Christmas i’m you know, making to make your family happy right like, and that was so it’s like you know.
73
00:10:36.090 –> 00:10:40.500
Shira Chess: One of the allowable spaces in the game industry for women is this.
74
00:10:40.830 –> 00:10:51.270
Shira Chess: This specter of consumption and this idea that like well, you can spend money if you’d like to spend money on this stuff that’s great and then you see that reflected in a lot of the modules you know I spent.
75
00:10:52.020 –> 00:10:58.200
Shira Chess: or non negligible amount of time writing about and talking about Kim kardashian Hollywood over the years and.
76
00:10:58.470 –> 00:10:58.890
A Ashcraft: That is a.
77
00:10:58.920 –> 00:11:00.930
Shira Chess: game that really centralize is.
78
00:11:01.980 –> 00:11:16.800
Shira Chess: Like sort of consumption in every possible way that it can and i’m not even this, this is not me, you know just in Kim kardashian Hollywood I spent a lot of time playing that game, but I think that it is in many ways, very artful in its construction.
79
00:11:17.040 –> 00:11:18.090
Shira Chess: But um.
80
00:11:18.450 –> 00:11:28.500
Shira Chess: But it definitely sort of centralized is consumptive practices and there are a lot of other games that sort of do that as well that sort of centralized that consumptive moment.
81
00:11:28.980 –> 00:11:31.950
A Ashcraft: Oh yeah absolutely animal crossing is a good another good example.
82
00:11:32.010 –> 00:11:32.700
Shira Chess: Here I mean yeah.
83
00:11:32.790 –> 00:11:33.360
Exactly.
84
00:11:34.440 –> 00:11:46.350
Shlomo Sher: um okay I don’t want to I was going to go in a different direction, but I don’t want to let this go, I want to kind of go back a little because he just in the beginning, you just kind of jumped to the idea that.
85
00:11:47.640 –> 00:11:56.220
Shlomo Sher: Women do tend to drift to more casual games in general right and that there were reasons for this.
86
00:11:57.240 –> 00:12:18.180
Shlomo Sher: Related to simply the way that women have had to pursue less leisure right but we haven’t got to the let’s say a sociological political explanation of that and maybe maybe would help to have a little bit of that in there, why is it that we we see trends go in that direction.
87
00:12:19.500 –> 00:12:25.140
Shira Chess: I mean, are you asking for, like the historical of where women are in the video game industry is that.
88
00:12:25.950 –> 00:12:27.600
Shlomo Sher: yeah yeah it’s interesting it’s it’s.
89
00:12:28.170 –> 00:12:29.190
Shlomo Sher: I mean yeah.
90
00:12:29.460 –> 00:12:34.740
Shira Chess: I think for many days you know for several decades, the first or the earliest decade now, the earliest.
91
00:12:34.740 –> 00:12:49.320
Shira Chess: But then the the most formative decades of the video game industry was marketing to this idealized masculine audience this idea of masculinity is not necessarily women specific or men, specifically, but this idealized male.
92
00:12:49.770 –> 00:12:50.550
A Ashcraft: And then.
93
00:12:50.820 –> 00:13:07.170
Shira Chess: What happened was in the early aughts there was a shift right like there were suddenly there were more people with computers that PCs playing casuals and PCs and so that became available I think diner dash was this really pivotal moment I like talking about diner dash.
94
00:13:07.470 –> 00:13:16.380
Shira Chess: Because it was just this moment where people were like Oh, I guess we’ve been will play, and you know because I came was really meant for.
95
00:13:17.040 –> 00:13:18.090
Shira Chess: Again, but but.
96
00:13:18.570 –> 00:13:21.000
Shira Chess: This idealize woman audience and again.
97
00:13:21.180 –> 00:13:32.730
Shira Chess: Like that’s, not to say that men don’t play in love diner dash it’s this idealization that’s done by the industry, there are, of course, a lot of women over the years that have played a lot of games that were meant for idealize masculine audiences I.
98
00:13:32.970 –> 00:13:45.330
Shira Chess: it’s not I try not to be prescriptive and how I talk about it because I don’t want to imply that there aren’t a lot of women that have been embedded in the video game industry playing those Games, for many years.
99
00:13:45.630 –> 00:13:46.830
A Ashcraft: Right so.
100
00:13:46.860 –> 00:13:48.000
Shlomo Sher: So that’s not the direction.
101
00:13:48.000 –> 00:13:48.390
Actually.
102
00:13:49.980 –> 00:14:02.910
Shlomo Sher: What well I didn’t I didn’t I really didn’t i’m trying to find the words to say these these things in a sensible way, but I really wanted kind of a more of an explanation of why it was that women essentially approach, leisure, as they did.
103
00:14:04.320 –> 00:14:14.910
Shira Chess: I mean I, so I mean I don’t have like hard data to back this up, but one of the things that I thought it’s been a lot of time thinking about is.
104
00:14:16.920 –> 00:14:20.940
Shira Chess: second wave feminism and that moment, and second wave feminism where.
105
00:14:23.340 –> 00:14:33.060
Shira Chess: Women re entering the the workforce, and I say that word re entering very gingerly here, because, of course, there were women that were always in the workforce right.
106
00:14:33.120 –> 00:14:37.710
Shira Chess: Like there were like I mean like i’m not being dismissive of that, but certainly middle class women.
107
00:14:37.950 –> 00:14:55.560
Shira Chess: Entering the workforce in the 80s and then sort of what early Russell hochschild talks about is the second shift right so women working a full time shift in an office, and then a full time shift at home right and i’m going to pause for a moment, because i’m getting a little bit of feedback.
108
00:14:56.640 –> 00:14:57.870
Shira Chess: Okay, I think i’ve stopped.
109
00:14:59.130 –> 00:15:00.750
Shlomo Sher: I can, I can edit that out bed.
110
00:15:00.780 –> 00:15:03.510
Shira Chess: Okay, I just wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to talk over it, and.
111
00:15:04.170 –> 00:15:05.970
Shlomo Sher: i’ve got it edited second shift.
112
00:15:06.480 –> 00:15:11.130
Shira Chess: Okay, so early Russell hostile talks about the second shift, which was.
113
00:15:12.300 –> 00:15:20.760
Shira Chess: The like you know that that women in the 1980s, who had not previously been in the workforce we’re going back to the workforce are going to the workforce, for the first time.
114
00:15:21.120 –> 00:15:29.250
Shira Chess: And then, but then still working a full time job at managing the hustled and so, in some ways that has shifted right like I mean there’s.
115
00:15:29.280 –> 00:15:39.420
Shira Chess: You know we’re in a better place than we were in the 1980s, in terms of that certainly and that’s, not to say that there aren’t households that don’t look like that, and that there aren’t hospitals that don’t look like other things, but that.
116
00:15:40.170 –> 00:15:51.960
Shira Chess: But that certainly sort of set up a space where there just wasn’t time for it right, and even if you look back at sort of like earlier feminist works, if you look at something like um.
117
00:15:53.400 –> 00:15:53.880
Shira Chess: You know.
118
00:15:56.010 –> 00:16:06.810
Shira Chess: Someone to before or or Mary Wilson craft or it things like that there’s a lot of discussion about like well men see us as frivolous things right so there’s this like sort of.
119
00:16:07.590 –> 00:16:17.190
Shira Chess: Always this commentary on that that question of frivolity and and I feel like that created some some tension with this idea of play right like like you know.
120
00:16:17.220 –> 00:16:17.760
i’m.
121
00:16:19.170 –> 00:16:32.430
Shira Chess: Playing it does imply a certain degree of frivolity, and so I think that all of those tensions together sort of constructed a space where, in order to be taken seriously, I think a lot of women sort of.
122
00:16:33.420 –> 00:16:47.430
Shira Chess: grew up in a culture where they were not necessarily playing right, you know and again, you know your mileage may vary that’s not i’m not making assumptions about all women everywhere.
123
00:16:48.030 –> 00:16:52.200
Shira Chess: But, but I think that that was one of the things that sort of so and.
124
00:16:52.920 –> 00:17:05.010
Shira Chess: As you know, talking about that idea of the second shift, then you look at a game like diner dash where you know you’re working as a waitress in a restaurant and I described it as a third shift where you know.
125
00:17:05.340 –> 00:17:10.470
Shira Chess: full time job in the office you work a full time job at home and then you know you have a couple of hours at night and.
126
00:17:10.980 –> 00:17:19.440
Shira Chess: You immediately jump into a Labor based activity of you know, and specifically emotional Labor based activity, because you know.
127
00:17:19.740 –> 00:17:31.620
Shira Chess: The reality is, is that while if you’re playing grand theft auto or heart signifies your health, but if you’re playing diner dash a heart signifies the love of others and you’re just trying to win over that love constantly.
128
00:17:33.270 –> 00:17:35.160
Shlomo Sher: that’s interesting thing yeah.
129
00:17:35.580 –> 00:17:43.530
A Ashcraft: What about games like there’s some other games that when sort of follow fall into this category, but maybe not quite so emotional things like farmville.
130
00:17:44.400 –> 00:17:53.010
Shira Chess: yeah no I mean I i’m so i’ve talked a bit about in some of my work about investigate so those would be invest express games right.
131
00:17:53.220 –> 00:17:59.910
Shira Chess: Where you’re investing time in order to to cultivate you know, a space and.
132
00:18:01.710 –> 00:18:08.850
Shira Chess: In invest express schemes in many ways to sort of like take all of the aspects of sort of like.
133
00:18:09.870 –> 00:18:23.100
Shira Chess: Labor in play and emotional Labor and all of these kind of messy things and also consumptive practices and so we’re gonna have like tie him up in a neat bow and serve them to an audience and so again that’s it, you know we wonder.
134
00:18:25.620 –> 00:18:34.620
Shira Chess: The question shouldn’t be Why do women play farmville the question should be, why do companies, try and make.
135
00:18:35.460 –> 00:18:40.140
Shira Chess: A farmville for women right like why, why does that happen what How is it that.
136
00:18:40.410 –> 00:18:49.140
Shira Chess: We culture it, you know we culturally design games in that way, when we are assuming women are the targeted audience and what does that mean in terms of.
137
00:18:49.470 –> 00:18:57.630
Shira Chess: Our cultural perceptions of leisure and leisure, equality and what we expect out of women for leisure and some of that also is that you know.
138
00:18:58.440 –> 00:19:08.340
Shira Chess: While women are about 50% of all game, you know video game players, you know and the numbers very obviously you know, depending on who counts as a woman, and what counts is video game and.
139
00:19:08.370 –> 00:19:08.850
A Ashcraft: blah blah.
140
00:19:08.910 –> 00:19:09.570
right but.
141
00:19:10.740 –> 00:19:18.180
Shira Chess: The but you know it ranges from anywhere from 46% to 52% so I like to just like you know split down the middle and say about 50%.
142
00:19:18.450 –> 00:19:27.840
Shira Chess: yeah and but you know i’m only 22% of the industry is people who identify as women.
143
00:19:28.260 –> 00:19:30.360
Shira Chess: And so, and that includes.
144
00:19:30.870 –> 00:19:39.090
Shira Chess: You know it, or at least the last time it was surveyed and obviously this numbers may have changed it’s been a while, since I think a good survey of those numbers have come out.
145
00:19:39.870 –> 00:19:46.410
Shira Chess: And they’ve grown a lot, but when I certainly when farmville came out, it was closer to you know that 22% number.
146
00:19:46.710 –> 00:20:05.280
Shira Chess: So that means that there’s a lot of people out there that are making games for audiences that are not themselves and building cultural assumptions into this games right or technology isn’t neutral and it reflects back what it is that we assume about this kinds of leisure practices.
147
00:20:06.420 –> 00:20:20.460
Shlomo Sher: Okay, so, so let me go back now right to to the idea right to do your idea that the playful was political yeah right right, I mean we’re used to think of playing is just your pain is about fun, so, in what sentence can play be political.
148
00:20:20.760 –> 00:20:32.520
Shira Chess: So um that phrase the playfulness political is one that like I have gone through a lot of phases with because it so first used in 2014 for official that I co organized with Adrian shot that.
149
00:20:33.630 –> 00:20:40.530
Shira Chess: Had the digital games research association degree and originally was like just this light punt on the personal is political right like.
150
00:20:40.530 –> 00:20:45.540
Shira Chess: We were just sort of like riffing off of that we didn’t really have a whole lot in mind when we were putting that together and.
151
00:20:46.140 –> 00:20:58.170
Shira Chess: And the fishbowl, of course, became weirdly politicized and a central pivot and how in gamer gate and how we were like you know how academia was was.
152
00:20:58.590 –> 00:21:03.240
Shira Chess: complicit in all of the evils that were being asserted.
153
00:21:03.960 –> 00:21:14.040
Shira Chess: by the people who were talking about gamer gate so I spent like a non negligible time thinking about that phrase, and then it became a title of my conclusion and ready player two.
154
00:21:14.700 –> 00:21:28.920
Shira Chess: And then I so, then I kind of like ended ready player to with that sentiment, the playful is political thinking about like these things matter because because play matters because because play in a quiet and quality matters and.
155
00:21:30.000 –> 00:21:42.360
Shira Chess: When I I revisited the phrase again when I real play like a feminist because i’ve increasingly become interested in how play and leisure, more broadly, can be like thought of as a mode of protest.
156
00:21:42.810 –> 00:21:50.220
Shira Chess: So in play, like feminist you know, like, I wrote this chapter play to protest and that was sort of like the premise, but the.
157
00:21:51.000 –> 00:21:58.230
Shira Chess: There was like a two part premise to it the first was that play itself can be a form of protest, like our choice to embrace leisure activities of.
158
00:21:58.470 –> 00:22:07.800
Shira Chess: both ourselves and if the folks around us, gives us this opportunity to push back at like the encroaching work Center culture that many of us are attuned to which.
159
00:22:08.610 –> 00:22:14.790
Shira Chess: I probably don’t see it nearly as well as Jenny adele’s had to do nothing I like which I strongly recommend.
160
00:22:15.660 –> 00:22:29.760
Shira Chess: But and then second that we can use play and political ways to make her protest, better and more effective so um and play like feminists they advocate for using playful tactics like alternate reality games or alerts.
161
00:22:30.240 –> 00:22:36.000
Shira Chess: to educate and to perform protest into add levity to our like most dire issues.
162
00:22:37.080 –> 00:22:37.830
Shlomo Sher: Okay.
163
00:22:39.810 –> 00:22:49.980
Shlomo Sher: Man I like both of what we’re going to we’re going to talk about the second one, the second one of these more or at least I want to ask more but let’s let’s get into a play like a feminist right so.
164
00:22:50.730 –> 00:23:02.520
Shlomo Sher: The title itself, or at least the project seems to be motivated by the supposes insulted playing like a girl, can you tell us a little bit about what that is so supposed to be and how it’s translated into the world of video games.
165
00:23:03.030 –> 00:23:08.070
Shira Chess: yeah so I mean like I started that book my start point for play like a feminist was the title.
166
00:23:08.610 –> 00:23:13.380
Shira Chess: I like the phrase popped into my head, it was her, and I think learning 2017 and it really like struck me.
167
00:23:13.680 –> 00:23:24.900
Shira Chess: It seemed like sort of a good counter response to like all the feelings of impending doom that I had at that moment in 2017 which, like whoa That was a cute feeling of impending doom I look back fondly on those bathroom.
168
00:23:26.010 –> 00:23:26.490
Shira Chess: and
169
00:23:27.630 –> 00:23:37.620
Shira Chess: The but so my star point in the book was sort of this question of like what does that mean what what does it mean to play like a feminist what might that mean and.
170
00:23:38.550 –> 00:23:42.720
Shira Chess: And until like to the point of that insult I was like really struck.
171
00:23:43.050 –> 00:23:53.520
Shira Chess: With the contrast of first off how the phrase like play like a girl was deployed when I was a kid so sort of being made fun of and I talked about like my experiences on the playground, of being made fun of.
172
00:23:54.300 –> 00:24:06.450
Shira Chess: for being a girl and versus like decades later when suddenly it’s meant as a like phrase of empowerment so like by a menstrual pads advertisements and Nike right like so.
173
00:24:07.590 –> 00:24:15.960
Shira Chess: The so, but even that is this flawed idea of playing like a girl right it’s still concrete is is what it means to be a girl.
174
00:24:16.470 –> 00:24:26.970
Shira Chess: And it implies sort of this compulsory system tenderness to that empowerment and sort of renders disability and age invisible right like it sort of it, just like.
175
00:24:27.510 –> 00:24:35.100
Shira Chess: It just sort of like realigns different things, and it doesn’t really say anything this idea of like playing like a girl whether it’s an insult or a compliment is just like.
176
00:24:35.610 –> 00:24:53.340
Shira Chess: it’s messily poor and so, then the idea to me a playing like a feminist is that we need to play in ways that transcend those physical and cultural boundaries and consider like what kinds of like a kind of leisure quality so.
177
00:24:54.570 –> 00:25:08.010
Shira Chess: Some of that, as I see it, is it like can happen in video games it’s a space that was formerly dominated by masculinity and that’s like changing contents like is deeply in flux.
178
00:25:10.200 –> 00:25:13.920
Shlomo Sher: i’m tempted to ask about what play quality would exactly.
179
00:25:15.270 –> 00:25:22.560
Shlomo Sher: Exactly be here what what that idea would be, can we can we give it a shot, I mean there’s so many ways to kind of define that but.
180
00:25:22.650 –> 00:25:24.990
Shira Chess: Did you did you have any night, you know um.
181
00:25:25.830 –> 00:25:32.340
Shira Chess: I think that it just like any kind of equality it’s The thing that you’re constantly working towards right but to me it’s not just about.
182
00:25:34.290 –> 00:25:52.530
Shira Chess: Playing more which I think is part of it, but also, it is about looking at the people in your life and seeing if they get enough play and how to enable play of those around us, because it’s not zero sum, and you know if if our say is on the backs of others Labor than.
183
00:25:54.000 –> 00:25:54.330
Shira Chess: and
184
00:25:54.390 –> 00:25:56.340
Shira Chess: You know that, then that.
185
00:25:57.360 –> 00:26:04.290
Shira Chess: Then it is imperfect I ended play like a feminist with not not to spoil everything but.
186
00:26:04.350 –> 00:26:05.310
Shira Chess: I ended it with.
187
00:26:07.980 –> 00:26:16.770
Shira Chess: Around 2017 I was making new year’s resolutions with my son, who was then I guess seven and he.
188
00:26:18.030 –> 00:26:19.350
Shira Chess: He or six maybe I don’t know.
189
00:26:20.610 –> 00:26:22.020
Shira Chess: He I can’t do math it’s fine.
190
00:26:22.320 –> 00:26:25.110
Shira Chess: And so, he came over to me and.
191
00:26:26.460 –> 00:26:36.810
Shira Chess: And like he wasn’t going to write his own resolutions, but then he wrote down my resolution, for me, which was play more and I was like okay so first of all, why didn’t I think of that.
192
00:26:37.980 –> 00:26:52.470
Shira Chess: Second, of all that’s a really good resolution that you know and in sort of, but it also hit me that it sort of made me sad right that that my kid was telling me to play more as a person who studies play and like what what does that mean right and so.
193
00:26:52.740 –> 00:26:55.620
A Ashcraft: it’s been a lot of times sort of grappling with the meaning of that and.
194
00:26:56.460 –> 00:26:59.880
Shira Chess: And my place has always been complicated and embedded in work.
195
00:27:00.270 –> 00:27:05.910
Shira Chess: Because, you know as somebody who studies video games as i’m sure you know, as both of you have experienced right like.
196
00:27:06.180 –> 00:27:13.500
Shira Chess: You have this moment where you’re playing a game, and you ask yourself is this work, or is this play what what am I doing right now is this actually.
197
00:27:13.980 –> 00:27:24.660
Shira Chess: Is this actually leisure, you know if i’m if i’m making notes in my head, am I am I working I don’t know I don’t know what that looks like anymore, so I think that that’s sort of the mess of it that I.
198
00:27:25.500 –> 00:27:34.440
Shira Chess: I enjoyed thinking about and play like a feminist gave me kind of that opportunity to really tease out some of those ideas I don’t know that I came to.
199
00:27:34.800 –> 00:27:41.190
Shira Chess: You know the conclusion of how to cure leisure equality for everyone, but I think that my goal wasn’t about.
200
00:27:41.910 –> 00:27:54.120
Shira Chess: Coming to big answer so much as like teasing that out and and also getting more people into the conversation, because I do feel, like so many of our academic conversations become insular and.
201
00:27:54.570 –> 00:28:06.150
Shira Chess: There are so many moments, where I mean all of the scholars I know in in my field have many, many times had these these you know discussions about.
202
00:28:06.900 –> 00:28:19.200
Shira Chess: The value of games, but I think that a lot of times that doesn’t happen outside, and so I wanted to expand that conversation, and I wanted to get on feminists to think about play more.
203
00:28:20.760 –> 00:28:33.240
Shlomo Sher: I love the idea of thinking of equality in games in terms of the quality of time played all right it’s interesting because it’s it’s a data itself is a very.
204
00:28:34.740 –> 00:28:44.550
Shlomo Sher: there’s so much that comes with the way we organize our lives and the relative time that we give to play before we actually move on to play like a feminist I want to ask a little bit more of that I.
205
00:28:45.840 –> 00:28:56.820
Shlomo Sher: wouldn’t matter also the kind of games that we’re playing, is there a quality, do you think that the you know you know, of course, when we say play like a feminists and, of course, I want to ask what kind of feminism well you know.
206
00:28:57.210 –> 00:28:58.980
Shlomo Sher: which you know what but.
207
00:28:59.100 –> 00:29:00.930
Shlomo Sher: You know the idea itself of.
208
00:29:02.370 –> 00:29:05.970
Shlomo Sher: The quality is so complicated right, and when we think about.
209
00:29:07.020 –> 00:29:14.970
Shlomo Sher: You know, not just the time but yeah if we go back to the time doesn’t matter what time do you think as a feminist and matters, what kind of play, we have.
210
00:29:15.720 –> 00:29:17.070
Shira Chess: I mean you know.
211
00:29:18.930 –> 00:29:30.300
Shira Chess: i’m of two minds on the one hand, I want to say yes right like play excellent things but, but on the other hand, I also feel like who am I to tell somebody else how to enjoy their leisure.
212
00:29:30.420 –> 00:29:41.940
Shira Chess: Right I I don’t think that I get to do that, and I think that that that kind of gate keeping doesn’t serve anyone so like do I have opinions about what good play looks like absolutely.
213
00:29:42.480 –> 00:29:43.320
Shira Chess: But um.
214
00:29:43.530 –> 00:29:48.720
Shira Chess: But I don’t think that that pushing that on others, is a good way to be an advocate.
215
00:29:49.560 –> 00:29:57.060
A Ashcraft: Right and and that that follows into sort of the way that we think about fun right because there’s different kinds of fun and.
216
00:29:57.870 –> 00:30:14.220
A Ashcraft: and different people want different kinds of fun at different times of the day of their lives or whatever, so it makes sense that sometimes you might want to have that you know glass of wine before dinner fun and sometimes you want to have the you know killing Nazi fun.
217
00:30:16.110 –> 00:30:16.710
Shlomo Sher: that’s a fun.
218
00:30:17.190 –> 00:30:17.820
A Ashcraft: You know, like.
219
00:30:19.470 –> 00:30:19.980
A Ashcraft: Like a worldwide.
220
00:30:20.280 –> 00:30:27.000
A Ashcraft: Like that kind of like intense kind of fun right as opposed to the relaxing kind of fun.
221
00:30:27.990 –> 00:30:38.340
Shlomo Sher: Okay um you know the philosopher at me, you know, is always thinking about you know Bentham and utilitarianism and the criticism of just.
222
00:30:39.930 –> 00:30:53.670
Shlomo Sher: of just thinking of fun and pleasure as completely relativistic without hierarchies of these things, and how they relate to the good life but we’re going to leave that aside let’s instead okay so.
223
00:30:55.410 –> 00:31:06.120
Shlomo Sher: Before we get to the connections more between video games and feminism, can you tell us a little bit about the sort of feminism you have in mind and what values or perspectives you bring to the table yeah yeah.
224
00:31:06.600 –> 00:31:14.250
Shira Chess: I, and I appreciate that question because I don’t think that feminism is one thing I very deliberately paralyzed feminism when I when I use the term.
225
00:31:14.790 –> 00:31:28.140
Shira Chess: But the definition of feminism that I use in the book is for bell hooks rest in peace, my that feminism is a movement to end sexism as sex sex sex is exploitation and oppression.
226
00:31:29.790 –> 00:31:35.370
Shira Chess: I don’t see feminism is a movement about exclusion, but one about inclusion so.
227
00:31:36.570 –> 00:31:44.970
Shira Chess: that’s that’s what I would like to be advocating for and I spend a lot of time thinking about sorry Sarah ahmed’s notion that.
228
00:31:45.480 –> 00:31:50.520
Shira Chess: to live a feminist life is to make everything into something that is questionable and so that was.
229
00:31:51.030 –> 00:31:58.110
Shira Chess: sort of where I come from, with is that I, I think that we need to call play and its value in our everyday lives into question and.
230
00:31:58.740 –> 00:32:08.970
Shira Chess: Because feminism’s of the past have been so inextricably connected to this issues of gravity and importance it like the core of my argument was that there needs to be more playtime in feminism.
231
00:32:10.800 –> 00:32:17.460
Shlomo Sher: More playtime in feminism not just feminism focused on more or feminism focused more on playtime.
232
00:32:17.730 –> 00:32:24.210
Shira Chess: Yes, yes, and right, like, I think that all of these things can be in conversation right, like, I think that.
233
00:32:24.720 –> 00:32:39.450
Shira Chess: A more playful feminism can serve us well and I think that feminism focusing on play can serve us well and I, like, I think that all of these things can be together and in harmony in in sort of my idyllic version of it at least.
234
00:32:39.840 –> 00:32:40.680
Shira Chess: Again, I wrote.
235
00:32:40.890 –> 00:32:55.380
Shira Chess: So I do feel like I always need the caveat, I wrote this book before the pandemic um so and I, you know it’s been it’s been tough on me, she sort of like revisit some of that um post pandemic or.
236
00:32:56.550 –> 00:32:57.360
Shira Chess: I should say I don’t.
237
00:32:57.390 –> 00:32:58.980
A Ashcraft: Post I don’t know what i’m saying right right.
238
00:33:00.060 –> 00:33:00.930
Shlomo Sher: Wherever we are.
239
00:33:02.040 –> 00:33:03.480
Shira Chess: In the shadow of the pandemic.
240
00:33:03.600 –> 00:33:05.280
Shlomo Sher: um so what.
241
00:33:05.370 –> 00:33:05.940
changed.
242
00:33:07.080 –> 00:33:19.320
Shira Chess: I mean I you know, so our our leisure habits have continued to change, as I see it right like we’re all you know in my book, I sort of like cheekily route, at one point that.
243
00:33:20.760 –> 00:33:30.540
Shira Chess: There, that I that, as I saw it during you know, during that time period that there are two types of people in the world, people who love video games and people who don’t know which video games they love, yet which I think is an.
244
00:33:30.630 –> 00:33:31.080
A Ashcraft: Excellent.
245
00:33:31.440 –> 00:33:38.160
Shira Chess: thing to say in 2017 but the reality is that once the pandemic really hit us.
246
00:33:39.090 –> 00:33:54.570
Shira Chess: The truth of the matter is, is that there were two types of people in the world, people who had a surplus of free time because they were because of the pandemic and people who had absolutely no free time because of the pandemic and.
247
00:33:55.680 –> 00:34:07.740
Shira Chess: I found myself increasingly in that second category and that that really has changed my perspective on things and I i’ve found myself moving away from digital.
248
00:34:08.280 –> 00:34:23.280
Shira Chess: games a lot and moving more towards board games in the pandemic and at various points I i’ve kind of fought it, I will you know i’ve tried to push myself to play more digital games and then I realized, you know, like you know I can’t get keep myself either you know.
249
00:34:25.500 –> 00:34:36.720
A Ashcraft: it’s interesting that that in a pandemic when you’re when you’re presumably you know sheltered away from most of the contact you have with other people that you graduate.
250
00:34:38.100 –> 00:34:45.120
A Ashcraft: You you you gravitated towards games, where you actually sit down with other people, those two games, where you don’t have to.
251
00:34:45.870 –> 00:34:55.050
Shira Chess: Sure yeah I mean, like some of it was just sort of you know, being around my family, you know my my kid was finally at an age where he could play cool games.
252
00:34:55.350 –> 00:34:57.480
Shira Chess: Man where you know.
253
00:34:58.500 –> 00:35:07.770
Shira Chess: That were that you know my kid my husband and I can like sit around and play board games and that felt more satisfying to me um.
254
00:35:07.830 –> 00:35:08.970
A Ashcraft: And so, so it’s.
255
00:35:09.000 –> 00:35:10.740
A Ashcraft: it’s within the pod you’re talking about.
256
00:35:10.770 –> 00:35:12.000
A Ashcraft: yeah not going on.
257
00:35:12.060 –> 00:35:13.890
Shira Chess: i’m not like going out a you know yeah.
258
00:35:15.900 –> 00:35:17.130
A Ashcraft: you’re not having friends over.
259
00:35:17.550 –> 00:35:19.890
A Ashcraft: Right right, so I get it now okay that makes sense.
260
00:35:20.070 –> 00:35:23.910
A Ashcraft: that’s actually a way to spend family time it’s a way to do some quality sort of.
261
00:35:23.910 –> 00:35:24.690
A Ashcraft: Family time.
262
00:35:25.140 –> 00:35:39.150
Shlomo Sher: yeah but it speaks to us so maybe how leisure itself is for by the constraints or freedoms in our lives right, I mean you know our family started playing a lot of you know a lot of board games too.
263
00:35:39.600 –> 00:35:56.550
Shlomo Sher: Right right that’s what you can do with it’s much easier, especially I can’t get my wife to play video games with me my son, but it’s a very easy for us to all sit around a table and play a game and we only have two controllers for the xbox to right.
264
00:35:56.910 –> 00:36:03.630
Shira Chess: Well, and also, I can I mean like I can enough stress that the screen a version that has happened to me over the last couple of.
265
00:36:03.630 –> 00:36:04.470
Shlomo Sher: Years yeah.
266
00:36:04.800 –> 00:36:14.700
Shira Chess: It is part of that right, like, I mean I just I don’t feel like sitting in front of screens in the evenings I, in that way right like I mean I might sometimes but not.
267
00:36:15.150 –> 00:36:28.920
Shira Chess: Not in the way that I did before, and so I just found myself not really making space for that kind of play, but making space for other kinds of play, and so you know we just started nurturing all of us.
268
00:36:29.430 –> 00:36:42.240
Shira Chess: In interesting board games and sort of figuring out, you know I mean like you know spending Saturdays playing mentions of madness which is intense with a elementary school age child i’m admittedly i’m.
269
00:36:42.390 –> 00:36:42.750
Shira Chess: So.
270
00:36:43.230 –> 00:36:44.670
Shira Chess: I mean I just I think that.
271
00:36:45.480 –> 00:36:54.870
Shira Chess: i’m still growing with it and I I imagine that there are a lot of people out there that are still figuring it out, and there are a lot of people out there that are barely making ends meet right now.
272
00:36:55.140 –> 00:37:05.820
Shira Chess: And they sure don’t have a whole lot of time to play so I mean, I think that issues of leisure equality have become even more exacerbated in the shadow of the pandemic.
273
00:37:06.390 –> 00:37:08.880
A Ashcraft: Do you think that so.
274
00:37:10.770 –> 00:37:26.460
A Ashcraft: This is, let this conversation has led me to sort of realize that even amongst myself and what you’re talking about and and and what Shlomo is talking about the way with his family, his leisure time gets sort of superimposed over other things that we also feel like we need to do.
275
00:37:27.600 –> 00:37:34.410
A Ashcraft: Like you know quality time with our family, we need to do that we need to set aside time for that, but can Can it also be playful.
276
00:37:35.640 –> 00:37:41.940
A Ashcraft: shopping is something we need to do we, you know, we need to go out and gather food and add whatever we need Can it also be playful.
277
00:37:43.110 –> 00:37:59.100
A Ashcraft: Do you think that that is that something that’s part of this Is this something that were the kind of leisure time that we ask that we present for for women has more of that sort of overlap of things that you would do anyway.
278
00:37:59.790 –> 00:38:02.640
A Ashcraft: I think I mean, I think that that is certainly the pattern of it.
279
00:38:03.120 –> 00:38:11.190
Shira Chess: And there’s again like video games, who really emulated that it’s certainly video game advertising, one of my first journal articles that ever wrote, many years ago.
280
00:38:13.050 –> 00:38:29.910
Shira Chess: I analyzed advertisements for the DS and the we when when they first came out and like magazine advertisements in like old school women’s special interest man so like Martha Stewart oprah and real simple we’re like running these ads and.
281
00:38:31.080 –> 00:38:38.400
Shira Chess: Some of the like so Nintendo had a campaign at the time that was do something with your nothing, which was a phrase that I just like then endlessly fascinating.
282
00:38:39.600 –> 00:38:41.850
Shira Chess: And because it sort of implies.
283
00:38:42.960 –> 00:38:48.630
Shira Chess: You can play, but only when you got nothing else going on right, you have 10 minutes in a doctor’s office do something with your nothing.
284
00:38:49.170 –> 00:38:58.260
Shira Chess: And then, but then we did this was I thought really interesting they did a campaign called my we story and people were.
285
00:38:58.710 –> 00:39:06.480
Shira Chess: They had a website set up and people would enter in there, we stories of that heather we revolutionized their life, and then they would turn the good ones into.
286
00:39:07.410 –> 00:39:16.800
Shira Chess: into magazine ads and the we stories were like often they were just so centered around.
287
00:39:17.580 –> 00:39:30.360
Shira Chess: sort of this sort of play is love mentality right like if you play with your family, the like you more if you play video games with your family, the like you more there’s one that I remember we’re women I don’t know that this ever made it to an ad but there was one where a woman.
288
00:39:31.830 –> 00:39:41.160
Shira Chess: But it might have I can’t quite I don’t have a copy of the ad, so I think it was just on the website that they were presenting it, but a woman who was.
289
00:39:41.880 –> 00:39:55.800
Shira Chess: pregnant and was on bed rest for being pregnant right like it was unable to go out and so like sort of the implication, and that, like the we saved her and sort of the implication was that she was playing for two right.
290
00:39:57.510 –> 00:40:06.990
Shira Chess: So um so there’s definitely sort of this history of of that play can function is this kind of emotional Labor that it’s.
291
00:40:07.350 –> 00:40:20.370
Shira Chess: It both inside of the game role but also outside the game world right like that, if you’re playing, then that means that your kids will like you, better I think i’m one of the ads there was something like a one of the one of the, this is what magazine ads.
292
00:40:21.030 –> 00:40:26.160
Shira Chess: A kid the mom wrote something in her testimonial something along the lines of well.
293
00:40:26.880 –> 00:40:35.340
Shira Chess: I made my me and my my kid said that i’m that I should change it and make it look prettier because i’m prettier than that i’m like.
294
00:40:35.760 –> 00:40:42.240
Shira Chess: Okay, so what, what are we saying here right like what is the The upshot of all of this, and I think that.
295
00:40:42.810 –> 00:40:53.940
Shira Chess: that a lot of that wizard of marketing certainly the we system in that way, that if you played with your family on the We then it’s not really your don’t worry about it you’re not you’re not being frivolous.
296
00:40:54.090 –> 00:40:56.670
Shira Chess: you’re actually just getting your family together it’s just if.
297
00:40:56.730 –> 00:40:59.280
Shira Chess: that’s all you’re doing, do you can calm down.
298
00:41:00.330 –> 00:41:04.710
A Ashcraft: Is that some sort of puritanical sort of you live to work.
299
00:41:05.130 –> 00:41:06.480
Shira Chess: It feels like it right.
300
00:41:06.510 –> 00:41:06.840
A Ashcraft: mm hmm.
301
00:41:07.260 –> 00:41:18.030
Shira Chess: It certainly does feel that way um there was also another add that I that I loved it that I still I still reference in the classroom sometimes brings you guys remember brain age.
302
00:41:19.050 –> 00:41:19.500
Shira Chess: So at the.
303
00:41:20.760 –> 00:41:30.330
Shira Chess: Brain each put out advertisements in magazines, at the same time, one in like wired in time and one in like real simple and Martha Stewart and it was.
304
00:41:31.410 –> 00:41:45.540
Shira Chess: The masculine ad was like this dude this bald dude with circuitry all over his head and it was like how to be compelling all caps had to be something like um did you know that a video game could help you compete with your coworker right like it, it was, like all futurism.
305
00:41:46.470 –> 00:41:59.910
Shira Chess: GS floating in the air and everything and then the woman’s ad was like a woman holding it was it was like this purple sweet looking at it was woman holding a DS almost like it was a book and sort of like looking down on it and.
306
00:42:00.750 –> 00:42:10.950
Shira Chess: It never used the phrase video game in the entire ad and it said, the Japanese secret of beauty, or something like that, and then it offered the woman a 3624 36 cerebrum.
307
00:42:12.180 –> 00:42:12.570
Shlomo Sher: Oh.
308
00:42:15.330 –> 00:42:15.540
Shira Chess: yeah.
309
00:42:15.690 –> 00:42:16.800
Shlomo Sher: prevention campaign.
310
00:42:20.310 –> 00:42:21.840
Shlomo Sher: What what you what year is this.
311
00:42:22.440 –> 00:42:25.200
Shlomo Sher: 2006 2007 wow.
312
00:42:25.740 –> 00:42:27.720
A Ashcraft: Okay holy smokes.
313
00:42:27.930 –> 00:42:29.280
Shlomo Sher: wow okay.
314
00:42:31.020 –> 00:42:34.200
Shlomo Sher: All right, let me, let me get back here.
315
00:42:34.380 –> 00:42:35.580
Shira Chess: i’m digressing a lot, I know.
316
00:42:35.940 –> 00:42:36.450
Shlomo Sher: I know.
317
00:42:37.770 –> 00:42:49.620
Shlomo Sher: bringing this back, and that was priceless okay so let’s go back to the feminism aspect of this right, what sort of guidance, do you think feminism can give us here and is a guidance for women, girls or all players.
318
00:42:50.850 –> 00:43:09.450
Shira Chess: I mean, I think i’m the vice here is that feminists don’t they need to think more broadly about playing leisure, as this issue of equality it’s not just like it’s not just about digital games includes them but it’s not just about that and that so like for a long time, I would.
319
00:43:10.590 –> 00:43:20.190
Shira Chess: I felt like I had this robust history of talking to women who would consider themselves feminists and they would be really dismissive when I tell them what I studied where they’d be like.
320
00:43:20.490 –> 00:43:30.840
Shira Chess: I don’t have time for for play or video games or some do that right, but like we all have time for play, we need to make time for play, we need to make room in our lives for.
321
00:43:31.440 –> 00:43:40.560
Shira Chess: us the people that we love to help them find that play, and it is an issue of equality right like it and it’s one that we just don’t talk about that much so.
322
00:43:41.520 –> 00:43:43.680
Shira Chess: And games are part of that and I.
323
00:43:44.460 –> 00:43:56.550
Shira Chess: I want to see more feminist playing video games, but I also want to see more feminists embracing board games and more feminists thinking about how to build leisure into their own lives and the lives of those around them and.
324
00:43:57.060 –> 00:44:07.470
Shira Chess: And I don’t see that as being a gender exclusive issue, although historically in the West, women have this like again I you know, everybody said it this complicated relationship with leisure and playing.
325
00:44:07.920 –> 00:44:14.520
Shlomo Sher: I think the second shift is just a really, really great example there that that I always kind of come back to.
326
00:44:15.660 –> 00:44:22.080
Shlomo Sher: And you know that I remember you know, particularly seeing and my parents generation, especially.
327
00:44:23.610 –> 00:44:32.820
Shlomo Sher: You know where you know both come home from work, you know at that point, the man can sit and enjoy whatever leisure activity is has while the woman.
328
00:44:33.390 –> 00:44:45.450
Shlomo Sher: Will you know prepare dinner, etc, etc right and so so that that part really kind of you know you know kind of stuck with me as emblematic of you know, the.
329
00:44:46.710 –> 00:44:51.240
Shlomo Sher: I don’t know the the leisure gap i’m assuming you have kind of a you know.
330
00:44:52.830 –> 00:44:56.340
Shlomo Sher: markers like like that is there anything.
331
00:44:57.630 –> 00:45:11.940
Shlomo Sher: You know the industry or game makers can can do is this just a kind of a way that we need to think socially about games or personally about the role of fun in our lives, or is this something that game designers themselves could be thinking about.
332
00:45:12.930 –> 00:45:24.120
Shira Chess: I mean, I think we need more women playing games, so that we get more women interested in making games in order to make games better.
333
00:45:24.180 –> 00:45:28.800
Shira Chess: Right like it is it’s it’s the cycle of it right, because of course.
334
00:45:29.100 –> 00:45:36.330
Shira Chess: You know I mean it’s it’s a passion job it’s a passion industry nobody’s going to go into the video game industry if they don’t actually already love video games and so.
335
00:45:36.540 –> 00:45:46.320
Shira Chess: there’s just that that habit of everybody continually making the same things and not the same things, but you know, like you know the same kinds of things, and that it works innovation.
336
00:45:48.720 –> 00:45:54.930
Shira Chess: And so I mean I don’t think there’s any one thing that the industry can do so much as.
337
00:45:56.670 –> 00:46:11.460
Shira Chess: I, I think that it needs to be on on both sides of it right and that was sort of my thought with the idea of gaming circles, when I I talked about them was that, like if more of us played, then we become a market, and if we become a market, I mean like.
338
00:46:12.510 –> 00:46:23.790
Shira Chess: la and I definitely have gotten some critiques in the book about the fact that I did not, you know go anti capitalist in my sentiment, but like we, you know as a market there is some power, you know.
339
00:46:27.120 –> 00:46:46.800
A Ashcraft: And that’s sort of interesting too, because one of the typical sort of aspects that we assigned to to femininity, is to do things for other people, and so, even when women get in the industry, I think it’s easier for them to make games for somebody that’s not themselves.
340
00:46:47.220 –> 00:46:49.050
Shira Chess: Interesting you know I hadn’t thought about that, but.
341
00:46:49.050 –> 00:46:50.040
Shira Chess: that’s an interesting point.
342
00:46:50.310 –> 00:46:56.310
A Ashcraft: Because certainly like we all get in the industry, and we, and we all have ideas for games, but almost none of us actually get to make the games that.
343
00:46:56.430 –> 00:47:04.860
A Ashcraft: That we want to do we’re always making games for somebody else in this and and it’s good to be able to like do that right we’re we’re good to be able to it’s a good.
344
00:47:05.220 –> 00:47:17.790
A Ashcraft: Design quality, good quality for a designer to be able to to make a game that’s fun for a demographic that’s not themselves here but frequently that’s design that’s that’s dictated by market.
345
00:47:18.900 –> 00:47:25.800
A Ashcraft: Right, which means that it’s going to be somebody who looks more like me than it is that it looks more like yo.
346
00:47:27.270 –> 00:47:28.110
Shira Chess: I mean yeah.
347
00:47:28.650 –> 00:47:34.230
A Ashcraft: I mean it shouldn’t be right, because, as you say 50% of the game playing market is female but.
348
00:47:34.290 –> 00:47:38.850
Shira Chess: there’s also a lot of sort of demeaning of what you know.
349
00:47:40.380 –> 00:47:46.530
Shira Chess: free to play games get such a bad rap right, but the reality of free to play games is that.
350
00:47:47.250 –> 00:47:57.210
Shira Chess: They are really good space, if you are not yet ready to be committed to spending money and I knew that there are all kinds of predatory practices and i’m not diminishing that.
351
00:47:57.510 –> 00:48:04.170
Shira Chess: they’re not all predatory right or a lot of free to play games out there, that are not predatory and that.
352
00:48:05.160 –> 00:48:07.680
Shira Chess: It allows people to try before you buy.
353
00:48:07.920 –> 00:48:23.160
Shira Chess: It yeah and that’s that is a practice that helps because the reality is is that if I go to someone if I talked to someone, and I say hey you need to play more games they’re not going to run out and spend you know $300 on a system and buy a bunch of $60 games.
354
00:48:23.460 –> 00:48:33.390
Shira Chess: There you know that that’s absurd know they they’re going to start with, you know you start where you live right everybody has a phone not everybody, but, but a lot of people have.
355
00:48:33.420 –> 00:48:35.280
Shira Chess: You know smartphone that they can.
356
00:48:36.570 –> 00:48:49.080
Shira Chess: We all have small gaming systems in our lives now and that’s an amazing thing that we can do to just start slowly integrating games in and and I think that there are some low.
357
00:48:50.010 –> 00:48:59.550
Shira Chess: level ways that we can just start getting more people to play games and so what I mean one of the things that I really tried to do when the book was coming out before the book came out.
358
00:49:00.300 –> 00:49:11.760
Shira Chess: I guess lessons and some pandemic but i’m was become a you know sort of an evangelist of it right like I having conversations with people and when they would say I don’t like.
359
00:49:12.360 –> 00:49:22.620
Shira Chess: I don’t play video games like why what didn’t you like, and then helping them sort of like it, you know i’m helping they be becoming there someone with a.
360
00:49:23.250 –> 00:49:24.210
A Ashcraft: game like.
361
00:49:24.540 –> 00:49:32.130
Shira Chess: You know figuring out what it is that maybe they’d like and giving them recommendations, because you know I do think that.
362
00:49:33.360 –> 00:49:43.950
Shira Chess: There are you know I have found that one of the first things to ask when and I have definitely converted some people who thought they hated video games into loving video games.
363
00:49:44.400 –> 00:49:48.510
Shira Chess: And you know so one of the first questions that you ask is always this question of like.
364
00:49:49.260 –> 00:50:06.900
Shira Chess: To do you prefer stories or puzzles right and if somebody says story than I usually send them to Florence because it’s like such an easy thing to start with, it feels like a short story, and you have just like that light level of interactivity it’s not it it’s very.
365
00:50:08.220 –> 00:50:23.340
Shira Chess: It there’s no challenge to it, but it still is a meaningful enough story that you feel complicit in it and you feel like there, there are some good moments in it, and if they say puzzle I usually say monument Valley, because you know.
366
00:50:23.760 –> 00:50:24.210
Shlomo Sher: Such a.
367
00:50:25.080 –> 00:50:25.800
A Ashcraft: beautiful game.
368
00:50:27.390 –> 00:50:28.260
Shira Chess: So i’m.
369
00:50:28.290 –> 00:50:30.210
Shlomo Sher: i’m actually playing it right now with my son.
370
00:50:30.450 –> 00:50:31.470
Shlomo Sher: Oh it’s good yeah.
371
00:50:31.590 –> 00:50:33.000
Shlomo Sher: it’s great second one yeah.
372
00:50:33.750 –> 00:50:37.140
Shira Chess: yeah it’s such a gorgeous game and it’s just so.
373
00:50:38.370 –> 00:50:56.700
Shira Chess: It really and that was sort of a moment that happened around um you know around 2017 after Ray player to came out I there was a shift right like so previously a lot of people who previously who would never have like video games or said would say that.
374
00:50:58.080 –> 00:51:00.840
Shira Chess: Suddenly, I would tell them what I study and they were like.
375
00:51:01.230 –> 00:51:06.780
Shira Chess: Oh cool and they would start asking me questions or they would they you know they’ve asked me for recommendations or like at one point.
376
00:51:07.080 –> 00:51:14.730
Shira Chess: I was at a birthday party and I was like chatting with a mom random mom and she started telling me about her three generations of her family play clash of clans.
377
00:51:15.000 –> 00:51:31.530
Shira Chess: And you know, so I started hearing more of these stories and then there was like this moment, where I started recommending games more and more, and I would have women come back to me and say I didn’t know the games like that existed and I realized that there’s so much insider baseball.
378
00:51:31.560 –> 00:51:33.030
A Ashcraft: Right, like, I mean it’s just like.
379
00:51:33.480 –> 00:51:39.840
Shira Chess: We know that there are like these artful literary cool weird games right that it’s not just.
380
00:51:40.620 –> 00:51:49.830
Shira Chess: Grand theft auto and super Mario but like there are people out there that have no idea and how do we get the word out how do we get them to.
381
00:51:50.280 –> 00:52:02.190
Shira Chess: Have these experiences and and can these experiences change their lives or make their lives, a little bit better either for short period or a longer period and that’s that that’s sort of where.
382
00:52:03.570 –> 00:52:05.040
Shira Chess: That That was where a lot of that came from.
383
00:52:05.940 –> 00:52:11.940
Shlomo Sher: um I want to, I want to ask about the gaming circles right, first of all, can you explain, for our audience, but again, you circle is.
384
00:52:12.630 –> 00:52:21.210
Shira Chess: So, and again this was Jamie circles, where this pre pandemic conceit right um and so, while the.
385
00:52:22.230 –> 00:52:29.700
Shira Chess: The gaming circles that I wrote about in the book are still possible, that things are more complicated now, obviously, but basically again like you know.
386
00:52:30.330 –> 00:52:39.450
Shira Chess: I had all these women that are not always but I had these experiences, where people are saying to me I didn’t know that, like the games like that existed and um.
387
00:52:40.290 –> 00:52:54.420
Shira Chess: And I really that statement really kind of shocked me because I began to realize that there are a lot of like those artful amazing games out there that non gamers don’t know about and so.
388
00:52:55.050 –> 00:53:05.820
Shira Chess: In that, like those people don’t know where to start they have some sense of their games out there, but like you look online for a list of games and you end up with a lot of nonsense.
389
00:53:06.540 –> 00:53:23.910
Shira Chess: And so I found myself curating lists of games for friends and I started my gaming circle sort of as a way to advocate for them to spread the practice outwards on it was basically like.
390
00:53:24.930 –> 00:53:25.710
Shira Chess: The you know.
391
00:53:26.790 –> 00:53:39.450
Shira Chess: It functions, like a book club everyone picks a game, and once a month that you know you need up at you, I guess, now virtually would be you know, to talk about the game and think about it in literary ways and I made a compendium website of.
392
00:53:39.810 –> 00:53:50.040
Shira Chess: Some games and some sort of book club style questions for discussion and the idea was that um you know if feminists are going to get.
393
00:53:51.930 –> 00:53:54.930
Shlomo Sher: i’m sorry sorry shira and is that.
394
00:53:54.960 –> 00:53:56.220
Shlomo Sher: Is that coming from your House.
395
00:53:56.220 –> 00:53:59.940
A Ashcraft: it’s coming from somewhere near my house, let me see if I can close my windows.
396
00:53:59.940 –> 00:54:01.710
A Ashcraft: yeah so sorry about that.
397
00:54:01.740 –> 00:54:02.760
Shlomo Sher: i’m sorry sure I don’t.
398
00:54:02.760 –> 00:54:03.150
Shira Chess: know why.
399
00:54:03.390 –> 00:54:16.950
Shlomo Sher: I don’t know if I could take that out, I think I gotta ask that question again it’s like I feel like you’re talking and this costs it knows is happening around you and I just want to make sure people here which.
400
00:54:16.980 –> 00:54:17.970
Shira Chess: which you guys so.
401
00:54:18.690 –> 00:54:24.630
Shira Chess: I didn’t know where I were to start again now, I I again i’m like i’m hitting the wall of my loopy so you.
402
00:54:24.660 –> 00:54:26.280
Shlomo Sher: that’s okay so up.
403
00:54:27.660 –> 00:54:30.600
Shlomo Sher: Is it is it done it is it just the the gardener.
404
00:54:32.280 –> 00:54:32.640
Shlomo Sher: Andy.
405
00:54:33.960 –> 00:54:36.000
Shlomo Sher: Andy we have we lost you okay yeah.
406
00:54:36.150 –> 00:54:38.220
A Ashcraft: i’m here now I just muted myself.
407
00:54:40.380 –> 00:54:43.710
A Ashcraft: that’s I miss hermetically sealed in this room, as I can be now.
408
00:54:43.740 –> 00:54:44.670
Shlomo Sher: As you can be.
409
00:54:45.180 –> 00:54:46.410
A Ashcraft: A pest that is that.
410
00:54:47.310 –> 00:54:47.730
it’s better.
411
00:54:49.290 –> 00:54:50.250
Shlomo Sher: Okay, maybe.
412
00:54:50.880 –> 00:54:51.690
A Ashcraft: it’s only somebody’s.
413
00:54:51.720 –> 00:54:55.350
A Ashcraft: got a leaf blower and I think it may even be across the wash.
414
00:54:56.280 –> 00:54:57.810
Shlomo Sher: Okay wow that far okay.
415
00:54:58.500 –> 00:55:04.500
A Ashcraft: yeah I mean right Los Angeles made them illegal some number of years ago and nobody’s ever enforced it.
416
00:55:05.820 –> 00:55:07.800
Shlomo Sher: I had no idea, there were legal okay.
417
00:55:07.890 –> 00:55:10.080
Shlomo Sher: yeah we have a mobile tenant.
418
00:55:10.260 –> 00:55:11.430
A Ashcraft: yeah the time.
419
00:55:11.520 –> 00:55:25.380
Shlomo Sher: Okay, so sure, let me, it has been softer, by the way, so thanks Andy so sure, let me go back in so she would tell me about gaming circles right what was a what’s the idea of gaming circles, how do you think getting these circles can help us here.
420
00:55:26.220 –> 00:55:34.830
Shira Chess: um, you know as, as I said, like I previously like there was that moment where where people increasingly were saying to me, you know I.
421
00:55:36.420 –> 00:55:44.280
Shira Chess: I didn’t know that games like that existed, and it really like it shook me when I heard that because I think that we, you know.
422
00:55:44.880 –> 00:55:54.840
Shira Chess: If if feminists are going to get more invested in play, and to play more they need to get some buy in to the market and to be able to articulate what they do and don’t like and so.
423
00:55:55.200 –> 00:56:01.530
Shira Chess: I mean the the gaming circles function like a book club everyone picks a game, and once a month, a group meets up.
424
00:56:02.430 –> 00:56:12.180
Shira Chess: Virtually now I suppose that would be the way to do it to talk about games and to think about them in more literary ways and so and I made a compendium website to go with it, so that.
425
00:56:12.600 –> 00:56:19.620
Shira Chess: And lists different games and different sort of play styles and games and had some questions for like bookstore club style questions.
426
00:56:20.250 –> 00:56:33.150
Shlomo Sher: So so Is this something that i’m very naive here, by the way, because before before you have never heard of the gaming circle i’m assuming designers do stuff like this and the you know where you know or is.
427
00:56:33.660 –> 00:56:36.330
A Ashcraft: It kind of happens for us naturally just by.
428
00:56:36.690 –> 00:56:37.620
A Ashcraft: By proximity.
429
00:56:38.730 –> 00:56:41.970
A Ashcraft: It sounds what she’s describing is something a lot more.
430
00:56:42.300 –> 00:56:43.020
Shlomo Sher: Like a book club.
431
00:56:43.050 –> 00:56:43.980
Shlomo Sher: design right.
432
00:56:44.340 –> 00:56:46.050
A Ashcraft: Right, then what happens with us.
433
00:56:47.070 –> 00:56:53.010
Shira Chess: Right, a large part of the problem is a question of vocabulary right and also like safe spaces.
434
00:56:53.280 –> 00:56:54.270
Shira Chess: Because if.
435
00:56:54.780 –> 00:57:08.550
Shira Chess: Somebody were going to go to their kid and say I don’t know anything about video games, you know, I guess, can you show me then the first of all they’re going to get a curated by their kid which could go any number of directions.
436
00:57:08.730 –> 00:57:10.170
Shira Chess: And second of all like the you know.
437
00:57:10.350 –> 00:57:20.490
Shira Chess: there’s sort of that insecurity of like not and you don’t want to look dumb you don’t want to try something new and then feel like stupid about it, and nobody wants that and.
438
00:57:22.380 –> 00:57:25.260
Shira Chess: So I i’m.
439
00:57:26.550 –> 00:57:28.950
Shira Chess: The This creates a safe space.
440
00:57:29.790 –> 00:57:39.390
Shira Chess: Right and and helps people build a vocabulary, because, as you build vocabulary you’re able to articulate what it is that you like.
441
00:57:40.560 –> 00:57:58.140
Shlomo Sher: Interesting So what is the goal here right, because if if we’re starting let’s hit the point where women are almost half of players is the idea to expand the range of games that are kinds of games that they’re familiar with is that is that the idea.
442
00:57:58.380 –> 00:58:02.310
Shira Chess: yeah I mean like it, you know, I would like to see a world where.
443
00:58:03.120 –> 00:58:15.810
Shira Chess: There were more women out there and more players out there, that that are like sort of non traditional gamers out there, not necessarily just women but non traditional gamers that knew about the alert are.
444
00:58:16.290 –> 00:58:26.310
Shira Chess: The artful and literary games that know about the indie games right like I mean and that’s, not to say that, like candy crush doesn’t have its value, but that candy crush isn’t the extent of it.
445
00:58:26.580 –> 00:58:38.190
Shira Chess: That you can that there is as much depth as you want to find and that you can have satisfying experiences playing games, if you have not previously.
446
00:58:39.720 –> 00:58:42.120
Shlomo Sher: You know, it is really interesting to me because.
447
00:58:43.200 –> 00:58:54.090
Shlomo Sher: i’ve i’ve i’ve been fascinated by the fact that I that most of my female friends are part of book clubs and never my male friends are ever part of book clubs.
448
00:58:54.540 –> 00:59:04.860
Shlomo Sher: And it’s one of those things that a my my sadness, for you know what seems to be you know men and boys reading a lot less these days.
449
00:59:05.790 –> 00:59:18.720
Shlomo Sher: but also a that I feel like so many men miss out on the book club experience and i’m wondering if I really liked the idea of doing something like that, with video games right.
450
00:59:18.900 –> 00:59:19.830
Shira Chess: I you know.
451
00:59:21.000 –> 00:59:32.310
Shira Chess: It didn’t you know it’s one of those things where you know I started this thing and it just it maybe started at the wrong moment right like I mean the reality is is that having a book come out in.
452
00:59:33.330 –> 00:59:39.720
Shira Chess: is a tricky you know space um but um, but I think that.
453
00:59:41.010 –> 00:59:53.220
Shira Chess: I think that even even without doing it as a circle in a really official way there are ways to sort of like find people who are game curious and pull them in.
454
00:59:53.940 –> 00:59:59.100
Shira Chess: And and try to you know, help them figure out what might.
455
01:00:00.000 –> 01:00:06.030
Shira Chess: improve their lives right it’s all just about improving our lives, making making our experience of living better and and.
456
01:00:06.270 –> 01:00:11.160
Shira Chess: I think that people that are already embedded in the industry knew that video games have the power to do that.
457
01:00:11.430 –> 01:00:21.870
Shira Chess: it’s you know, there are just a lot of people that haven’t quite gotten there yet or interested, but just don’t know how to get there, and so that was sort of that was the premise that was where I was coming from on that.
458
01:00:22.830 –> 01:00:29.280
A Ashcraft: But that’s sort of interesting to write because that makes playing games another form of sort of self help.
459
01:00:30.960 –> 01:00:32.310
A Ashcraft: Which is again not leisure.
460
01:00:33.150 –> 01:00:37.590
Shlomo Sher: Right well, is it, I mean you know I mean, in a sense, you’re.
461
01:00:37.590 –> 01:00:41.700
A Ashcraft: Right repaint my house to route because I want my my my life to be better.
462
01:00:41.970 –> 01:00:47.760
A Ashcraft: You know I I I spend time learning a new skill, because I want my life to be better.
463
01:00:49.530 –> 01:00:57.960
Shira Chess: I you know in increasingly i’m pushing away from having a one size fits all definition of leisure.
464
01:00:57.960 –> 01:01:13.350
Shira Chess: Because the reality is is that, like you know our experiences are so unique right like um, but I think that you know the the point of any activity, they you know.
465
01:01:14.100 –> 01:01:26.730
Shira Chess: player leisure activity to some extent, is to improve to make your life better I don’t know about you know self improvement in the sense of self help but make your life better right like he most people don’t do leisure activities.
466
01:01:28.710 –> 01:01:30.000
Shira Chess: Not planning on doing that.
467
01:01:30.510 –> 01:01:43.920
Shlomo Sher: yeah it’s weird and because, on the on the one hand, I definitely see the idea of you want fun to be simply for fun sake, but you know i’m always going to ask, but what’s the value of that.
468
01:01:44.580 –> 01:01:47.400
Shlomo Sher: And if you get to the point where that your life is just better.
469
01:01:47.760 –> 01:01:49.080
Shlomo Sher: Right, we have fun.
470
01:01:49.410 –> 01:01:58.920
Shlomo Sher: Right, then I don’t know if it makes a difference if you know fun is instrumental or you know just you know intrinsically good.
471
01:01:59.190 –> 01:02:05.670
A Ashcraft: yeah it’s just it’s just such a strange selling point, though right like you go have fun because it’ll make your life better.
472
01:02:06.420 –> 01:02:09.000
Shlomo Sher: sounds like the best selling point ever.
473
01:02:10.200 –> 01:02:15.210
Shlomo Sher: You know you’re telling me that my life, be better if I just go have fun it’s a win, win.
474
01:02:17.730 –> 01:02:18.780
Shlomo Sher: Andy quick check.
475
01:02:19.500 –> 01:02:20.250
Shlomo Sher: On time we.
476
01:02:20.520 –> 01:02:21.930
A Ashcraft: were right about.
477
01:02:21.990 –> 01:02:30.750
A Ashcraft: An hour and three minutes from when we started, so I think this is a good time to like get one final question in and and and wrap it up.
478
01:02:30.870 –> 01:02:34.770
Shlomo Sher: Okay, let me make it a very generic questions so you can take it anywhere you want.
479
01:02:36.270 –> 01:02:42.090
Shlomo Sher: So so she read in terms of feminine feminism and play.
480
01:02:43.560 –> 01:02:45.960
Shlomo Sher: Given giving last words First, what do you think what you go from here.
481
01:02:49.260 –> 01:02:49.770
A Ashcraft: To Brian.
482
01:02:50.010 –> 01:02:50.400
Shira Chess: that’s a.
483
01:02:52.980 –> 01:02:53.490
Shira Chess: broad range.
484
01:02:56.640 –> 01:02:57.180
Shira Chess: Okay.
485
01:02:57.450 –> 01:03:02.220
Shlomo Sher: um let’s see did we talk about what games could do from for feminism.
486
01:03:02.940 –> 01:03:03.750
Shira Chess: I don’t think we did.
487
01:03:04.020 –> 01:03:05.820
Shlomo Sher: Okay, so so let’s so let’s finish with.
488
01:03:05.820 –> 01:03:06.390
Shlomo Sher: That right.
489
01:03:06.480 –> 01:03:18.510
Shlomo Sher: Okay okay sure so so we talked about, you know how feminism could help us really think about games and the importance of leisure What would it be two games have to offer for feminism.
490
01:03:20.490 –> 01:03:40.740
Shira Chess: So in our political fights um, we need to learn how to game things out better, we need to glitch out vulnerabilities and we need to MOD the game and make new games and tease out problems and find ways to do things differently, and no one knows how to glitch at a game better than a gamer.
491
01:03:42.660 –> 01:03:53.250
Shira Chess: By training feminists to be gamers were essentially training them to be more effective, about thinking about systems of oppression and structures that can be beaten.
492
01:03:54.600 –> 01:04:07.290
Shira Chess: I like to think of it that video games are like a gigantic training machines so agency, of course, is a term used by activists and scholars to articulate like that process of taking action.
493
01:04:08.310 –> 01:04:15.480
Shira Chess: Specifically against systems of power, and you know, but also agency is a term that we talked about in video game design right.
494
01:04:16.170 –> 01:04:18.360
Shira Chess: it’s our will to act to become.
495
01:04:18.360 –> 01:04:33.750
Shira Chess: Part of the system, while pushing against it, without that agency, the player loses the game so in the real world, we need to feel our agency to affect change and thinking about games can help us get there um.
496
01:04:36.000 –> 01:04:37.440
A Ashcraft: yeah I agree with that entirely.
497
01:04:38.190 –> 01:04:48.840
Shlomo Sher: Alright sounds great alright Thank you sure sure Dr Xu or chess from university of Georgia check out her books I play like a feminist and ready player to.
498
01:04:49.950 –> 01:04:54.660
Shlomo Sher: shira Thank you very much for coming on our show the podcast play nice everybody.
