Kyle Pedretti

College Writing R1A, Section 005

1 December 2018

Feminism in Ready Player One: Challenging Gamer Misogyny with a Feminist Sensibility

Ready Player One, written by Ernest Cline and published in 2011, depicts the life of

Wade Watts – an eighteen-year-old boy whose life revolves around the quest to find Halliday’s

Easter Egg. Taking place during the 2040’s, the novel presents readers with a dystopian future in

which the OASIS – a virtual reality used for both business and recreation – has become, for

many, a more important reality than the real world. Cline constructs a culture surrounding the

OASIS that, in many ways, resembles gamer culture in 2018. However, as a whole, the novel

simultaneously criticizes aspects of this culture; most notably, the novel adopts a feminist

sensibility that represents a stark departure from the misogyny of current gaming culture.

One example of how the culture of the OASIS mimics that of gaming today is through

the use of heavily sexualized avatars. “In the OASIS, you usually saw one of two body types on

female avatars: the absurdly thin yet wildly popular supermodel frame, or the top-heavy, wasp-

waisted porn starlet physique” (Cline 53-54). Jennifer Dewinter and Carly Kocurek describe the

implications of this type of female sexualization in “Aw Fuck, I got a Bitch on my Team,” a

chapter from their 2017 book Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video

Games. Citing the research of Jesse Fox, the authors state the following:

Sexualized avatars in video games may even convince women and men to objectify the
female body, which makes them more likely to support rape-myth attitudes… ‘It appears
that users of sexualized avatars may be at risk for developing negative attitudes towards
women and the self outside of the virtual environment.’ Avatar representation matters.
The more sexualized the avatar, the more likely women and men are to objectify women
and subordinate women. (63)
As seen here, the hyper-sexualization of women in video games is not innocuous, but rather a

detriment to the women and men who see said avatars. Although no adverse effects of avatar

hyper-sexualization are shown in the text, we can presume that a deeper look into the culture of

the OASIS would likely reveal repercussions similar to those described in Dewinter and

Kocurek’s piece. What the novel does offer, however, is a critique of hyper-sexualization of

avatars through its portrayal of Art3mis, a popular gunter blogger with whom Wade is virtually

smitten:

Her avatar had a pretty face, but it wasn’t unnaturally perfect. In the OASIS, you got used
to seeing freakishly beautiful faces on everyone. But Art3mis’s features didn’t look as
though they’d been selected from a beauty drop-down menu on some avatar creation
template. Her face had the distinctive look of a real person’s, as if her true features had
been scanned in and mapped onto her avatar… I found her unbearably attractive.
Art3mis’s body was also somewhat unusual… Art3mis’s frame was short and
Rubenesque. All curves. I knew the crush I had on Art3mis was both silly and ill-advised.
(53-54)

Wade finds beauty in Art3mis’s physical features that don’t conform to the female beauty

standards of the OASIS. In doing so, the novel offers readers an alternative definition of beauty

that delineates from the gender roles of today’s gaming culture. Furthermore, the novel actively

opposes the standardization of naturally unattainable female beauty, commending Art3mis for

her disruption of the status quo. This view of beauty fundamentally contradicts the misogyny of

today’s gaming culture. Moreover, Ready Player One offers its readers a strongly feminist view

of female beauty and critiques the hyper-sexualization of female avatars. As the novel

progresses, we also see how this feminist sensibility transcends a critique of avatar beauty

standards.

Despite demographic data revealing video games are played roughly equally by men and

women, we see today’s gaming industry producing games with an “adolescent male sensibility”

that “[embraces] male fantasies of power and domination” (Dewinter and Kocurek 59). As a
result of catering games to this teenage boy demographic, women are segregated from the

gaming community:

This ideology facilitates the treatment of women gamers as an aberration, as

transgressors, as interlopers… Some male gamers embrace gaming as a last bastion of
homosocial male space, fighting to protect it from a slow creeping integration of gender.
For these men, women’s presence in games – as players, producers, or even characters –
taints the form. (60)

We can see how, in today’s gaming space, women are not seen as equals with their male

counterparts. Rather, women who play video games are seen as invaders of a space made for

men, populated by men, and dominated by men. However, when analyzing Art3mis’s character,

the novel’s opposition of masculine dominance becomes apparent. Despite ultimately losing the

hunt to Wade, at no point is Art3mis subordinated or had her abilities called into question as a

result of her gender. Art3mis is not a two-dimensional love interest, present solely to further

Wade’s storyline; she is first and foremost a gunter, a fact made evident when she tells him they

need to stop seeing each other:

“We’ve both been neglecting our quests to hang out with each other. We should be
focused on finding the Jade Key right now. You can bet that’s what Sorrento and the
Sixers are doing. And everyone else… I’ve been searching for the egg for over five years.
So have you. Now we’re closer than ever to finding it. I can’t just throw my chance
away.” (289-291)

In the scope of Ready Player One as a whole, this dialogue places the merit of Art3mis as a

gunter above her merit as romantic partner. Moreover, it characterizes her as a woman who

prioritizes achievement in her career as a gunter over entering a relationship. Through this

subordination of her romantic interests, the novel very clearly shows its feminist sensibility.

Furthermore, the novel gives readers an example of women outperforming their male

counterparts in gaming spaces through Art3mis obtaining the Jade Key before Wade.
 Some critics may argue that the novel is not inherently feminist by simply letting Art3mis

win the Jade Key before Wade and making her avatar not hyper-sexualized. While it is true that

the novel is by no means the epitome of feminist literature, it nonetheless maintains a feminist

sensibility throughout. Women in gaming face much opposition in the eSports community today,

as demonstrated by Dewinter and Kocurek. Should the novel not be commended for providing its

readers with an alternate reality in which such patriarchal barriers are opposed?

Through its characterization of Art3mis, the novel aligns itself with feminist ideologies of

success in women’s careers and opposition of female objectification. While specific scenes may

depict acts of misogyny, the sensibility of the novel as a whole remains feminist. The gaming

community today has a deeply rooted sentiment of misogyny and an overarching male centricity

that has proven to be detrimental to female gamers and women working in the industry. For this

reason, Ready Player One and other works across various forms of media that have a feminist

sensibility are invaluable to our culture, providing gamers with a story that opposes any

misogynistic views they may hold. While this is by no means equivalent to the impact made by

suffragettes in the nineteenth century, we cannot discount the impact entertainment media has on

shaping consumers’ world-view. In the scope of the novel as a whole, Art3mis’s character does

more than aid in Wade’s plot progression; moreover, she establishes a distinct feminist

sensibility that opposes the misogyny of gaming culture.

 Works Cited

“Aw Fuck, I Got a Bitch on My Team.” Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in
Video Games, by Jennifer Dewinter and Carly A. Kocurek, Indiana University Press, 2017,
pp. 57–73.

Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One. New York: Broadway Books, 2011. Print