According to the data presented by the Entertainment Software Association, roughly 58% of Americans play video games. Worth over 20 billion dollars, the video game industry is one of the fastest growing businesses for entertainment outlets in America. With growing influence on the public, more attention is being brought to the exact content of these games and whether they have any lasting effects on individuals outside their virtual walls. More specifically, gender representation of males and female in video games and their relationship to real societal gender roles has been a topic that has instigated considerable research by social scientists. Though, female gamers make-up over 45% of the gamer population, they are often underrepresented and sexually or stereotypically depicted as characters in games. (The Entertainment Software Association) These stereotypes create extremes for “what is feminine” and “what is masculine”, that as a result, present more rigid gender roles for players and their characters. (Behm-Morawitz & Mastro, 2009) Contemporary gender representations of men and women in video games have damaging effects on men’s treatment and opinion of women, women’s self-efficacy, and female gamers’ position in the gaming public.
Video games, along with other forms of social media, have created a median for gender roles to visualize the social realities that people believe in (Dill & Thill 2007). In video games, female characters have traditionally been underrepresented and misrepresented as secondary non-playable characters that serve as a purpose to pleasure men. According to USC’s 2009 “Video Game Minority Report”, only10% of female characters were playable in games. In the article, “The Effects of the Sexualizati...
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...d Video Game Characters on Tolerance of Sexual Harassment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(5), 1402-1408. http://dx.doi.org.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/10.1016/j.jesp.2008.06.002
Ivory, J. D. (2006). Still a Man's Game: Gender Representation in Online Reviews of Video Games. Mass Communication & Society, 9(1), 103-114. doi:10.1207/s15327825mcs0901_6
Lamphere, L. (2013). The Domestic Sphere of Women and the Public World of Men: The Strengths and Limitations of an Anthropological Dichotomy. In Brettell, C., & Sargent, C. F. (6th ed.) Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective. (81-87) Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall.
O'Connor, A., Henning, A., Killen, M., Collins, M., & Brenick, A. (2007). Social Evaluations of Stereotypic Images in Video Games: Unfair, Legitimate, or "Just Entertainment"?. Youth & Society, 38(4), 395-419. doi: 10.1177/0044118X06295988
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
... never concretely relates to video games it is only normally assumed. many believe that video games only impact male players through these violent outburst yet a lot of research suggest that the misconceptions regarding video games such as decrease in academics, increased aggression, and a decrease in respect for women is often situation based and rare at that. it has been shown however the video games increase an individual's spatial performance. As is said in the article Gender Disparity in Video Game Usage: A Third-Person Perception-Based Explanation,
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 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
Prior to the 1970s when the theme of gender issues was still quite foreign, the societal norm forced female conformity to male determined standards because “this is a man’s world” (Kerr 406). The patriarchal society painted the image of both men and women accordingly to man’s approach of societal standards that include the defining features of manhood that consist of “gentil...
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.
A feminist movement in its own right has begun in the gaming community. Women are generally believed to be understand by members in many geeky, gamer or nerdy parts of today’s society. In the gaming industry women are statistical and cultural outliers. Gender stereotypes about girl gamers or ‘Gamer Girls’, the latter of which has begun to receive a negative meaning, keep many women from fully participating in the rich game industry culture. Female workers in the gaming industry get mixed signals from an industry that on the outside appears to desire gender diversity in order to attract the growing ranks of female gamers but on the inside it is resistant to change its sexist and discriminatory practices that make women feel singled out and alone. Females of the gaming community not only receive sexist and vulgar remarks from their male counterparts of the community but the very companies, making the games they love to play, single them out more than anyone else. Being that game development is a very male dominated job in the gaming industry it is understandable that women would feel a little advised not to pursue a career in gaming but the few women that do brave the doubts are met with criticism and dominating remarks. They are paid less than their male counterparts and are given less chances at promotions.
Ever since I was little I remember playing games where I would fight the bad guy and win the girl in the end. This never seem to affect me or make me wonder what small effect it had on my thought process. In games such as Zelda, call of duty, assassin creed, gears of war, Mario, and even halo you play as a white heterosexual male. The idea of playing this way never seemed to phase me as a young child. As I grew up and became more aware of the difference of people and the need for other as well as myself a need to be able to connect and find one 's self in different place such as games, movies, and TV shows. I became aware of the one sided views that video games seem to have. Then I realized that it was seen as acceptable to only have the one sided displayed due to the lack of speaking out on the need for change.
Many video games portray women as objectified beings, purely used for sex appeal and to attract the larger male gamer population. We also see men idealised in a similar way as well – the males in video games are portrayed as muscly, brawny men. However, we rarely see a scantily clad man in a game, but there is a vast abundance of games which feature women wearing ‘sexy armour’, or a noticeable lack of substantial amount of clothing. This isn’t female-friendly as these games are made for men, causing women to feel alienated and uncomfortable.
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.
According to our main source of Gender in Cross Cultural Perspective the book along with lecture gave us many examples of barriers and preconditioned notions of man’s work or woman’s work and how these barriers and outlines have been broken and rewritten over the course of time and throughout the years.
According to Amanda Lenhart “it seems that gamers are social people” (qtd. In Irvine). 90% of kids between 12 and 17 years old played some king of video game, with very little differences between gender and race. Most of kids play video games often and their choice of video game were diverse as their tastes for music or TV program. Some of the most common video game gender were racing, sports and action. Older kids are able to get videogames that are rated for mature audiences and most of this kid listed at least one of these games as their favorite. This proved that kids are violent just by playing video games and there is a huge amount of kids playing video
Gaming has long been considered a male-dominated activity. There have been numerous scientific studies conducted to analyze the impact video games have on an individual and vice versa, however one of the most common discussions concerning the gaming community is sexism. With today’s growing audience and the popularity of smart phone gaming, it is a mystery as to why gaming has managed to keep its male-minded stereotypes. Most games reflect the sexist gender roles imposed upon gamers by society, however today’s response is a heated protest, some more dramatic than others. Most gamers are demanding more female protagonists, and developers are listening, but it’s a slow climb to equality in the world of pixels and fantasy. Let us discuss the surrounding influences of the video game community, some setbacks and remarkable breakthroughs in diversifying, and the ways gamers shape the games they play.
Social scientists have been examining the effect that video games have on behavior. From the introduction of video games in the 1980s, there have been numerous research studies to this effect (Andersen & Taylor, 2008). The issue has become even more significant in the modern context because these video games have become bloodier and more realistic than ever before. Even though boys play these games more than girls in America, the consumption of video games has generally been high. Carey (2013) indicates that 32% of these gamers are below the age of 18. Therefore, it would be crucial to evaluate the effects that these video games have on the behavior of such children.