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Pouch DepositsThe Editor and the Readership |
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This Pouch Deposits column is a little bit special, in that the letter didn't reach us by mail, but as a full-blown article in another magazine. Still, it fits the remark/response paradigm common to this column, hence we'll insert it here.
Without further ado…
The following quote is, verbatim, what one person said to me after my result at WDC (note, this person did not know me and had never met me):
“One thing I imagine you had going for you, is that you might have been seriously underestimated. You’re young and pretty, short of stature, and lest we forget, the only female in an all-boys club. You’re like the princess in the tower screaming for help to the Mario’s running around in the castle. But then once outside, you climb on your bike, rev up the gas and leave everyone in the dust.”
If someone can point me to an example where screaming for help got them anywhere in a Diplomacy game, please do so, because I cannot fathom this as a valid strategy or why anyone would think someone could do well enough to place third with this (or place at all really). Not to mention after the first round, any sort of underestimation should have immediately disappeared (and, someone in my first round knew me online so the whole point is moot).
I struggle to see any male online player who placed well in their first tournament receiving comments such as the ones above. There is no element of surprise that exists because of our gender, and there is no cry for help. I know how to play Diplomacy, and that is why I did well. Attributing a female player’s success to men, or to the fact that they may have acted like a bimbo to win, is not only wrong but also very alienating for us. If our gender was any cause for our success, I would not have been the first woman to be in the top 3, let alone the top 10.
As an aside I would advise refraining from calling women helpless or Princess Peach (I personally prefer titles such as “overlord”, but that’s just me).
Mario Huys' (woelpad@gmail.com) response:
This quote was originally part of the interview with Durga, but she took it far too personal, so I left it out. But was I gratuitously insulting just for the sake of it? Of course not. There was a purpose here.
Interviews are not your common casual, private conversations. As an interviewer you try to elicit responses that might be interesting to a larger public. One of the techniques is to look for stereotypes in order to let your guest expose and debunk them (or sometimes exploit them). If you check the other interviews, there are similar instances where I confront my guest with some stereotype (Conrad's looks, Ruben's accent, Marvin's academic background, …) that led to some witty or charming reactions.
Especially Conrad, after I compared him to a "Prince Charming", offered some great insights on the value of personal hygiene and general bearing in an FTF game. Moreover he mentioned that if he noticed other male players being particularly under the spell of a female opponent, he would attack the female player and take her out. I found that quite revealing and wanted to get to know the reaction of someone on the other side. So when Durga gratiously accepted my request for an interview, I looked for an angle to field this question.
I chose to go for an analogy using an over-the-top cartoonish relatable character. If your name is Mario and you live in Japan, the choice is pretty straightforward. Princess Peach is the principal female character in the family-friendly Super Mario universe. She's the archetype of the "damsel in distress", being created at the dawn of the computer gaming age, when storylines were of minimal concern and the focus was on moving little sprites from one side of the screen to the other.
There's actually an ad running on Japanese tv of Princess Peach yelling "Help me, Mario!" in a throwback blocky video game style. Now, compare that, as I did, with the Princess Peach racing around on a motorbike in Mario Kart 8. She's the image of a self-conscious independent woman, who doesn't take orders from anyone, least of all a plumber guy with a moustache. It's this contrast that strikes me as indicative of the evolution that shaped society, not just the Japanese one, but on a global scale (given Nintendo's global appeal) in the last 30 or something years.
I know, no one likes to be compared to a screaming human being, as that conjures up images of little, helpless babies, but I thought that because of the cartoon setting and the strong image in the second part, one might see the humor and respond in kind. That unfortunately didn't happen. The interview, which was conducted through a chat channel, could well have ended there. First there was no response for the longest time. It's only after I insisted, that she gave me a hot and angry rebuke, not really suitable for publication. I was forced to change course and steer the conversation into less inflammatory territory. If you check the text, you'll notice that we did end on a relatively amicable note.
If the purpose was to expose a common gender stereotype in sports and games competitions, did it fail altogether? In the framework of that single interview it did. But by sparking the writing of a second article, even if published in a rival magazine, you might say it worked. I did apologize to Durga though, for apparently hurting her feelings. I hope that the explanation above goes done way in clearing up any misunderstanding. My intention was to debunk a stereotype. So, to all females and feminists out there eager for a fight, let's instead appreciate that together we made another step towards, no, not a more equal, but an equal society full stop.
