Session Overview

Despite the fact that non-male gamers are commonplace, video games, tabletop games, and gaming culture are often portrayed as an inherently masculine space. Taking place in honour of International Women’s Day, Women + Gaming seeks to utilise the popularity of gaming culture to reflect upon and engage with issues of gender representation, inclusivity and feminism.

The session will commence with a short overview of some of gaming’s most iconic, interesting or progressive characters. This will be followed by a panel discussion that seeks to assess and explore the state of gaming culture in terms of gender diversity and inclusivity, based on panel members own experiences. The panel will be chaired by Dr Manuel Hernández-Pérez, the Screen, Game and Entertainment Programme Leader at the University. Confirmed panel members include animation and gender studies researcher Kodi Maier, organiser of the 2017 Queer/ing Animation conference and Dr Chris Skinner, founder of the SeriousGeoGames project which uses games technologies to enhance teaching and outreach. This will then be followed by opening up the discussion to the floor, for audience members to pose questions to the room or share their own experiences.

Key issues are set to include: What is the current level of gender representation is in video games? Are tabletop and board games a separate issue? What progress is being made? Are titles from big publishers keeping in step with indie developers? Are these characters combating issues like the objectification of women? Are tabletop gaming sessions inclusive? Is this something male gamers know is happening?

Schedule

5.30 – 6.00 Overview Presentation of Iconic Gaming Characters

6.00 - 6.45 Panel Discussion

6.45 Public Q+A and discussion

About the OpenCampus

The OpenCampus Programme is the University of Hull's open access adult lifelong learning education programme.  You can attend one session or all the sessions in a series.  Sessions are informal and friendly and are not traditional public lectures.  We do not charge for admission to sessions so we utilise the University's normal teaching spaces when they are not required for student teaching (lecture theatres and seminar rooms).  We try to provide access to one of the University Cafes as part of the experience, but cannot guarantee this. We try to time sessions to meet the needs of the majority of our learners. We like to accommodate the needs of all attendees (seen and unseen needs) by having a comfort break at each session.