Asha Pabion
Kathleen Martin
ENC 1102
7 Feb 2017
Bounded by Expectations: Females in the Gaming Industry
"There are different ways guys look at it: ‘You are so hot because you play games, and
I'll never meet another unicorn like you,’ or ‘Oh, a girl — I'm going to make this unpleasant for her’ and ‘Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen” (Chicago's Sugar Gamers). Comments like these are immensely common in the gamer community. Since gaming is viewed as a primarily male hobby, women that play games are invariably being judged because of their gender. The gaming community was designed to be a nerd’s safe haven away from reality and into their fantasy, yet women are still objectified in these fantasies. Game developers continue to depict women as
sexy
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Female gamers are negatively affected by this perspective because they are compelled to compare themselves to female characters that are misleading as to what a “normal” woman should look like. Female gamers should not feel like they are being objectified or individualized because of their gender. Nor should they have to regularly view unrealistic female characters in their favorite videogames. However, games like Overwatch, created by Blizzard, have begun to change the way women are viewed in videogames as well as how female gamers view themselves in regards to appearance, age, and personalities.
Initially, female gamers are not fully recognized as gamers to many males in the gaming community. Even the title “gamer” correlates to males yet to specify a female as a gamer, the title is changed to “gamer girl.” Sometimes, women will claim to be “gamer girls” for the sake of
Pabion 2 attention, which brings a negative connotation towards actual female gamers (Looking in the
Popular Culture Mirror). Other non-gamer females also put female gamers under a bad light.
This scorn is caused by the stereotypical expectations of how women should behave and present themselves. Stereotypes such as women being naturally shy, passive and submissive do
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In other cases, these women are verbally abused in cruel manners that affects their well-being. In fact, these words and phrases tend to directly connect to their gender. Phrases such as “get back in the kitchen and take your hands off of the controller” and words that include identifying the gamer as a bitch, whore, and or slut are almost always said to a female gamer.
Also, women such as Brianna Wu, an avid gamer and the developer of her own blog about females in the gaming community, face multiple threats that includes rape threats, death threats, harassment, and revealing private information which has become a daily occurrence for her
(Daily Mail). Male gamers almost never receive rape threats or threats that target their gender explicitly. Ironically, the percentage of female gamers is nearly equal to that of male gamers.
More specifically, 59 percent of those who play games on a regular basis are men; 41 percent are women (Polygon). No matter the percentage of female gamers, there is no excuse for treating them differently than anyone else. This treatment does not only effect female gamers but the women that helped develop the games as well.
Likewise, women that work for the gaming industry are also unfairly criticized. There
When you use the word feminine you naturally think of demure, quiet, pretty, pastel, and motherly. Strong, ambitious, athletic, powerful and opinionated never come to mind. And, it seems, because the woman is not to speak up for herself it is okay to say hurtful things in front of them.
Grand Theft Auto IV promotes hetronormative hierarchical distinctions between feminity and masculinity through its framing of female and male bodies, its presentation of females as objects of the male gaze and its encouragement of players to adopt and act out a hypermasculine role. It is of vital importance that we do not exclude race, gender or sexuality from discussions of videogames, because as Leonard (2006, pp. 84) asserts, doing so ‘contributes to problematic, if not faulty, understandings of video games and their significant role in contemporary social, political, economic, and cultural organization.’ Instead as players we must engage in discussion regarding videogames and, as Jenkins writes, we must ‘find a way to move beyond our existing categories and to once again invent new kinds of virtual play spaces’ (1999, pp.
Even though I found solace in the female video game characters of my childhood as these icons of Amazonian womanhood, with age I have come to realize that many of these female characters often rely on dated stereotypes. So much so, that many of these female characters become walking tropes, displaying only the most basic of female stereotypes: a love for shopping, makeup, and shoes. Anita Sarkesian, a feminist blogger who critiques anti-woman tropes in video games, created the name of this particular trope, the 'Ms. Male ' character. The 'Ms. Male ' character is defined as a female character with little-to-no personality or defining traits outside of traditionallly regressive “female” characteristics. This allows a game designer to take
Sports, Violence and Alcohol - Three things considered to be in line with masculinity, Along with alot of things considered to be primal instinct. In america the prevalence and Sports, Violence and Beer exceeds most others leading to the general conclusion that America’s men are overall muscle bound meatheads who enjoy nothing but their primal urges. Clearly this is false but still an assumption made by those who only know these three things. As technology advances a new element of entertainment emerges, containing violence, sports and entertainment, Its videogames. Video Games muster together Guns, Violence, Sex, Alcohol, Sports and more Violence. From this description its easy to see why this would be a male oriented activity. At the time girls were still expected to be relatively lady-like. Yet as the years pass by, girls begin to play the video games which guys have been playing for years this causes a disparity between male and female gamers in the upcoming years.
Girls are told to stay indoors and play with their dolls or bake, while boys are encouraged to go outdoors, get dirty, and be adventurous. Wade and Ferree also state “sports are squarely on the masculine side of the gender binary” (Wade and Ferree, 174). Hence, we are brought up with the understanding that playing and talking about sports is a boy’s thing, which further promotes the notion that sports are a very masculine thing. Furthermore, as playing sports is competitive and is a way to show excellence, young boys are considered as “real boys” and “real men” later on. However, when boys do not talk about or play sports, they are considered feminine or “not real men.” The same rule applies for young girls. If young girls are too into sports, they are considered to be “too masculine.” This is true for me too. When I was younger, I was told to not play too much outdoors and to behave “like a girl.” The stigma that only boys should be allowed to play sports and it is not a feminine thing needs to be erased for us to welcome a more gender-equal
This is because it is common for males to freely express their own fantasy that they lack in reality. In addition, they play video games to be their ideal self. If they were to play a female character, it would lean more towards the fact that it depicts what they want their dream girlfriend to look like. In Video Games and Gender by Michelle Zorrilla, video games have long been known as a male-dominated media. There would mostly be male characters than there are female characters because female characters are usually depicted as the subordinate character.
The world of gaming is expanding with endless possibilities of ways to play. Gaming has advanced greatly over the years by expanding over many different platforms. Smartphones, tablets, and next generation consoles are just a few of the many possibilities to play. This expansion has broadened the demographic of players and changed the way we play today. Although the demographic has widened and the games have become more advanced, there seems to be a reoccurring theme in gaming. White males make up the majority of video game protagonists, while minorities and women are stereotyped and degraded. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) recently released its 2013 sales, demographic and usage report for the computer and video game industry. “Numbers show that 58% of Americans play video games. Fifty-five percent of gamers are male while 45% of gamers are female.” These numbers should suggest a change in the look of gaming to support its wide range of gamers. Yet and still nothing is being done. I feel this is due to a lack of women and minorities in the video game development field. If more knowledge of the field were to be presented to the African American youth, I feel there would be more interest and an increase in the number of minority game developers.
The history of video games began in early 1950s, and it continued in development until today. video games gained popularity as movies and T.V shows, and like movies which producers focus on the story plot, each character role, and the way they are being represented, videogames have the same concerns, especially character 's role and, representation, because most of players will not care about the game’s story, they just want to have fun playing the game, but the player will play as a character, or meet other characters from various gender, and that what make game designers care about the gender and, characters representation. and by the way of presenting gender, it will control the number of players of both genders, because it could connect to their life. games industry made researches about what both genders want in their game,
Since the humble origins of the video gaming industry, individuals used it as a challenge of their abilities. In modern day, this industry is just a popular as any other media which exists in the mainstream world. Video games reflect society’s changing views of the normalities of which individuals and/or groups must abide to. This is exemplified in the evolving representation of the queer individuals within the virtual world. As the video game industry came into focus, so did the LGBT rights movement. This illustrates that society’s views on the LGBT community were reflected in the video games made, however, it was rare that such characters existed as protagonists until the twenty first century. Due to the extreme lack of asexual and non-binary
Reinhard, Carrie L. "Hypersexualized Females in Digital Games: Do Men Want Them, Do Women Want to Be Them?"Department of Communications. 2006. Print.
Dill, Karen E., and Kathryn P. Thill. "Video Game Characters and the Socialization of Gender Roles: Young People’s Perceptions Mirror Sexist Media Depictions." Sex Roles 57.11-12 (2007): 851-64. Print.
Sexism also occurs within the actual gaming population where a large, if not whole part of the female gamer population encounters sexist and indecent remarks at least once from the male gaming population.
In addition, women are paid less than men for the same type of work. According to Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg mentions that women were paid fifty-nine cents for every dollar men were paid in 1996, but women protested to raise the compensation to seventy-seven cents (6). This means that even though a woman and a man perform the same work such as an engineer does, both do the same assignments and have the same responsibilities in the technology place, men are paid twenty three cents more than women. Moreover, women suffer from “gender discount” which means women have to pay for being part of the workplace or society ...
Video game industry have been representing female character as sexually objectified or shown as a victim who is in desperate need of help through male protagonist, this portrayal has negative effect on the mind of our generation and the gender roles they identify with.
Some scholars explain this shift in equality with the increase in female game developers (Lynch 2016). Though only at twenty-two percent, female developers continue to shine a light on the lack of female presence. This expanding audience and the prevalence of mobile gaming has fueled the diversity of