Summary Of Why Violent Video Games Are Good For Girls

A Critique of “Why Violent Video Games Are Good For Girls” Carmen Tieu, author of the article, “Why Violent Video Games Are Good for girls” gave a series of examples on why first-person-shooter (FPS) are beneficial for women. There may have been agreeable examples and stated reasons, but her article flawed in many aspects. Tieu lacked in the area of including two parts of ethos that would make an article succeed better. As well as excluding some parts of Toulmin Model. The use of informal fallacies, such as overstatements and false analogies also exists in the article. The numerous mistakes made in the article had an informal tone when bringing all of the information together.
In Carmen Tieu’s article “Why Violent Video Games Are Good for Girls” she explains how playing video games can build a women’s self-esteem in the ways of “[beating] guys at their own game” (Tieu
83). Participating on the online world of video games depicts the often stereotypes given to women. An example from the article, “culture generally portrays females as caring, nonviolent, and motherly beings who are not supposed to enjoy FPS games with their war themes and violent killings” (83). Women that usually play these types are games are supposedly harassed with those stereotypes. She also includes women who play these games can be given the chance to develop different types of relationships with men. This can lead a way in knowing the how the male mind works, in the ways of criticizing females for playing video games (84). As an example, it is stated in the article, “When the testosterone kicking in, guys become blatantly homophobic and misogynistic” (84). The author, Carmen Tieu, lacks ethos in her article, in the way of professionalism and academic tone, respect for the opposition, and the facts and evidence used. Tieu uses terms and statements that develop an unprofessional context that does not provide an academic tone. For example, Tieu states, “Playing video games with sexist males . . .” (83). This also shows how she has little respect for the opposition and just assumes that all males would be sexist when playing video games. The last part of ethos that has been excluded was the facts and evidence. Tieu did not show any type of support that shows other women may feel the same type of empowerment when beating males in video games. It is also said, “. . . I especially savor the look of horror on their faces when I completely destroy them.” (83). There is no way of looking at the faces of the other players on the television, so her statement would be an invalid fact.
In Tieu’s article there shows the use of some informal fallacies.
The first informal fallacy consists of an overstatement otherwise known as stereotyping. Tieu’s stated reason that included breaking women’s stereotypes with gaming is hypocritical to the fact that she is making her own stereotype for the male gamers saying they are “. . . sexist jerks . . .” (84). In this case she is trying to rid women of their stereotypes such as “. . . caring, nonviolent, and motherly beings who are not supposed to enjoy FPS games . . .”, but giving males an even crueler one. (83) Another informal fallacy used is a false analogy. Tieu compares both her gaming abilities to her career of chemical engineering, which have no correlation to each other. For instance, Tieu states, “The confidence I’ve gotten from excelling at shooter games may have even carried over into the academic arena because I am majoring in chemical engineering and have no fear whatsoever of intruding into the male-dominated territory of math and science” (83). It is hard to put those two completely different subjects into play with each
other.
In addition, there are missing parts of the Toulmin Model in Teiu’s article. Tieu did include the view of what the opposition may think, however Tieu did not include conditions of rebuttal anywhere throughout the article. She conveys “Feminists also argue that violent video games often objectify women by portraying them as sexualized toys for men’s gratification” (82). No evidence provided shows Tieu proving the opposition wrong after she had stated the main idea. The other part of the Toulmin Model that was missing is the qualifier. Tieu did not have a qualifier to limit the scope of her argument. An example from the article would be “I argue that playing first-person-shooter games can actually be good for girls” (82). A way to improve that statement is by adding a qualifier that would limit the scope of her argument.
Every article needs improvement, no matter how well written. Authors can leave errors or not follow the right format that should be taken forward. Tieu, in her article, excluded two steps form the Toulmin Model, lacked ethos, and the use of some informal fallacies that could have made her article stronger in these aspects. It would be important to watch for these mistakes as an author, like Tieu when writing an article.