Play Like A Feminist urges everyone to spend more time playing and making games like a girl.

Although women now make up nearly half of all self-identified gamers, the industry itself is still pretty well dominated by men. That’s a problem for a number of fairly obvious reasons that have made headlines for the past several years, and it’s a problem that author and Associate Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia Shira Chess tries to fix in her latest book.

It’s called Play Like A Feminist, and it’s a title that’s designed to be provocative to a certain section of the gaming populace. They’re not likely to buy the book and that’s probably just fine by Chess. She wants the industry to be up-ended, and you don’t do that by selling books to toxic gamers.

In Play Like A Feminist, Chess argues that “video games need feminism and feminism needs video games." Video games need feminism for a fresh perspective and that the potential of video games can’t fully be realized until women have a larger voice in their creation. Chess believes that a “platform-expanding, metaphysical explosion” of creativity is just around the corner if women can grab the reins of game development.

But it’s not just about getting women into positions of power within the industry. You can’t get women games unless you have women players, and Chess has a plan for that too. In her book, she proposes “women’s gaming circles” that are sort of like book clubs for gaming. She has a blueprint for how to create such a group amongst female friends.

“Chess’s goal is for all of us—regardless of gender orientation, ethnicity, ability, social class, or stance toward feminism—to spend more time playing as a tool of radical disruption,” reads the forward of Play Like A Feminist. Radical disruption does sound pretty radical, and even if you’re not a feminist, you should be excited at the prospect of what a feminist view can do for gaming.

And for those gamers who are concerned, don’t worry: games like Call of Duty aren’t going anywhere just because there’s a woman in charge. There will just be different games out there too.

Play Like A Feminist is out on August 18th wherever good books are sold.

Source: MIT Press