.ltWomen take a hard line on sexist computer software
The Sunday Times,
16 July 1989
GAMES FOR THE BOYS
A NEW pressure group is campaigning against the way women are portrayed in computer software. Oasis, the Organisation Against Sexism in Software, was set up seven months ago by Sandra Vogel, a researcher at the Centre for Communications and Information Studies in London.
Vogel says: "I'd been annoyed with sexist software for a long time, but it was not until I saw a strip poker game in which Samantha Fox stripped off that I decided to do something about it."
So far, Oasis has 150 members: 45% women, 37% men, and 16% businesses, including software houses, educational establishments such as York University's computer science department and the Open University's school of education; and local authorities. It acts as a focal point for people who want to change conventional male and female roles.
Paola Kathuria, a computer programmer in Leeds, joined Oasis because she felt women were not adequately represented in computing. "I find that many arcade games are sexist. The central character is always male, and women are left out. I just will not play them. Oasis can help to show women in a truer light than these games do, and I would like to see the organisation branch out and look at other kinds of software too."
Gareth Morgan, a part-time lecturer at Bristol Polytechnic and partner in Kubernesis, a firm which produces non-sexist mailing lists, thinks that Oasis should investigate administrative software which always assumes the user is male. "Girls and women are not entering computing in the numbers they were five years ago, partly because the computer systems themselves treat females as marginal. The Sex Discrimination Act should be followed more closely."
Some personal computer games take sexual stereotyping much further-into pornography. These games, available through mail order advertisements, aim to shock. For instance, Adult 1 is a pornographic show which uses animated graphics to simulate sex acts. Astrotit is a sexual variation on Space Invaders.
In another game, the player assumes the character of a 22-year-old man who has to find his "extremely mature" 15-year-old girlfriend in her parents' house and run away with her. Obstacles include a dog, an angry father with a shotgun, and an hysterical mother with a kitchen knife.
Vogel admits to a dilemma over the influence such games have. She is uneasy about where to draw the line between pornography, humour and an individual's right to play the games he pleases. "I don't want Oasis to be labelled as a kind of Mary Whitehouse organisation-anti-porn and anti-freedom of expression," she says. "It may be acceptable to ban these games for 14-year-olds, but what right has anybody to tell 35-year-olds what they can see?"
But she does think that computer pornography is potentially dangerous. "Porn is the objectification of women, and in any of its forms can lead to sexual violence. Most of the anti-computer porn campaigners look at the effect porn has on children. But it doesn't just affect children's minds, it affects society's. The only solution is debate and education."
Vogel collates Oasis members' recommendations, and publishes a newsletter in which solutions are debated. Oasis co-operates with and advises software houses and computer magazine editors. An advertisement for Astrotit was banned from the computer magazine Micromart when Oasis told the editor of the game's content.
Members who are offended by a game are advised to write direct to the software house or to Oasis-or to the Advertising Standards Authority in the case of offensive advertisements. One, for a game called Psycho Pigs, was recently banned on the strength of eight complaints.
"Oasis has started people thinking, which is very important. We have initiated a debate within the computer press and created a network of communication between members of the group," says Vogel.
Now Oasis is about to expand, due to recent publicity on Usenet-the electronic mailing services system based in America. "We have had lots of interest from American publications and individuals," says Vogel. "Groups in Australia have also contacted us."
*Oasis: 3 Alden Court, Stanley Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 8RD.
.lcAre 'beat-em-up' computer games sexist? Is it true that these games are designed for and played by boys, or do girls like them too?
