So much has changed here at Feminist Frequency in the past year! When 2016 started, we had just two full-time staffers: Anita and myself. Now we’re up to four! We’re still a very small organization, to be sure, but doubling in size opens up a lot of exciting new possibilities for us, and because each member of our team has such a distinctive voice and a wonderful perspective, I want you to get the chance to hear from all of us.
What that means is that, starting now, each of us will be contributing our own work to Feminist Frequency at least once a month, and you can expect that work to comment on everything from current political events to movies and television to music to, yes, video games. As an introduction of sorts, all four of us wrote up lists celebrating some of our favorite media of last year, and while you may already be familiar with Anita’s voice and my own, I hope you’ll take a moment to get acquainted with our operations director Ebony and our giving officer Ashley. They’re both wonderful additions to our team, and I think you’ll love reading what they bring to Feminist Frequency each month.
In addition to becoming a collection of voices, we’re also evolving how we respond to the media of the moment. Last year, we produced a number of reviews that looked at games from a feminist perspective, and I’m really proud of that work. (I’m particularly fond of my review for Quantum Break, a game that was bad in such fascinating ways.) But as the gaming media landscape changes, it’s also becoming increasingly clear that while standard reviews have their place, they aren’t always the best way to dig into the aspects of a game that are really worth talking about and exploring. It’s also apparent that you don’t always have to be among the first out of the gate in order to meaningfully contribute to the conversation around a game; often, it’s in the days and weeks after a game has been released that the best and most thoughtful work about it has a chance to emerge.
Each member of our team has such a wonderful perspective, and I want you to get the chance to hear from all of us.
So while we may still produce reviews for certain games, we’re also freeing ourselves up to cover games and other media in different ways. For instance, a bit later this month, I’ll be writing about how I think some games of 2016 succeeded at creating a deeper, more authentic sense of connection between characters than games usually have in the past, and what lessons I hope the games of the next few years take from this success. I’m really excited to be able to approach games in whatever way I think will best serve you, the reader, whether that’s a video review that considers all the aspects of a game, a written piece that focuses on one particular element, or something else entirely.
I’m equally excited about all the changes coming to Feminist Frequency this year, and can’t wait for you to become more familiar with Ebony and Ashley as their work becomes a regular feature on the site. Stay tuned; there certainly won’t be any shortage of things for us to talk about.
Carolyn Petit
Managing Editor