J. Haniver’s Not In the Kitchen Anymore is a Woman’s POV on Misogynistic Gamer Socialization

I tuned into J. Haniver’s Not in the Kitchen Anymore (NITKA) after it got mentioned on Kotaku. NITKA is an extension of an earlier art project by Haniver, “a 23 year old female gamer, who specializes in first person shooters (specifically, Call of Duty).” She records conversations of (male) gamers who take issue with female gamers, and she posts the audio and transcript of those conversations on NITKA. Her experiences reveal–despite the fact that the average age of gamers is 37 and there is almost equal numbers of men and women gamers [read about that here]–there are strong currents of misogyny among some male gamers. It is important to note that she prefers first-person shooters such as Call of Duty, which mirror military combat scenarios, situations, and materiel. Are these misogynistic male gamers drawn to COD and similar games, do the games re-inscribe women-should-not-be-on-the-front attitudes, or a mixture of both? Haniver’s project to bring this to light is very important work, but how can we take this and turn it towards educating and convincing male gamers that their behavior toward women is unacceptable? Games and the Internet are not separate from real life–they are a part of life, and perhaps that is the point that we need to get across to people. Also, I wonder how this translates into other gaming communities, such as mmorpgs or competitive causal gaming.