Mothership and a History of Women in Games Media

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This week on Post Games: Act 1: A History of Women in Games Media Act 2: Mothership Lands on Earth Patreon Bonus: Imagining a Better Future for Video Games Act 3: The News of the Week Patreon Bonus Mini-Episode: A Century of Women’s Media in 15-Minutes Guests: Maddy Myers and Zoë Hannah, founders of Mothership.blog

Editor's note: This episode went live at the same time as its Patreon version so everyone had access to news of Mothership.blog. The public Post Games feed will return to its Monday release time next week.

Say hello to your next favorite website. Mothership is a site built at the intersection of gender and games. Today, I’ll be chatting with founders Maddy Myers and Zoë Hannah. They’ll provide a primer on the history of women in games media, dating back to the early 1980s. And they’ll share their months-long effort to make Mothership a reality. To set the stage, here’s part of Mothership.blog‘s mission statement:

"Whenever we boot up an RPG character creator (or pick up a TTRPG character sheet), we can’t help but interrogate the choices that are available — and the ones that aren’t. We’ve noticed how many female video game characters, even our favorites, have hourglass figures and pale complexions. We can’t help but consider and interrogate the gender norms on display among male characters in games as well, whether we’re revving a Lancer as Marcus Fenix or swinging a sword as Link… or putting on a Gerudo disguise. At Mothership, you’ll read writing from a diverse roster of contributors. You’ll find reviews, criticism, and opinion stories about games’ depiction of gender, as well as stories about how these games are marketed. You’ll get investigative reporting on the people who make games in an era when “DEI” is on the wane. You’ll read historical deep dives on the games and creators that paved the way, especially those that didn’t get due credit way back then."

This is a sprawling conversation about games, gender, media, and that deep urge we all share to connect and be seen See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.