Stereotypes Of Women In Video Games Essay

Besides female game developers, women who self-identify as “gamers” reveal that there is a larger gap between women who play video games and the video game community on a whole. A total of 6 percent of all adult women interviewed said that the term ‘gamer’ describes them well, whereas 15 percent of all adult men interviewed said the same. This gap further intensifies when looking at young adults aged 18 to 29, as one-third of young men agree that the term ‘gamer’ describes them well, more than three times the proportion of young women (9 percent) (Duggan, 2015). Without being able to feel as though the ‘gamer’ identity can apply to them, this further isolates women from embracing this title as well as isolating them from trying out video games and contemplating if they enjoy the games or video game culture. By having only 6 percent total of adult women identify as “gamers” when women make up 41 percent of the total gaming population, it shows that the “gamer” label does not fully or truly represent those who game, which

in turn discourages women from pursuing being a “gamer”.
The exclusion of female gamers extends beyond the gamer title as female gamers often have to contend with hostile online environments. Online games in which women might connect and foster their mutual interest actually deter women due to gender harassment (Fox & Tang, 2014). Sexism towards women in online video game environments have become a pervasive and divisive issue in the gaming community due to social dominance orientation and conformity to some types of masculine norms such as the desire for power over women and the need for heterosexual self-presentation. These two aspects predict higher scores on the Video Game Sexism Scale, which represents greater sexist beliefs about women and gaming (Fox & Tang, 2014). Also, a survey given to World of Warcraft players found that 63.6 percent of the female respondents reported that they had experienced sexism or misogynistic behavior from other players, while only 11.6 percent of male respondents reported such experiences (Brehm, 2013). Clearly, this reveals that female gamers have to contend with sexist and misogynistic behavior from other players which in turn isolates female players from involvement in the game they desire to be playing. A more troubling finding from Brehm’s study was the perception of the extent to which this kind of behavior was problematic also differed between genders, with 45.3 percent of female participants reporting that sexism is a problem in World of Warcraft but only and 27.5 percent of the male players held the same opinion (Brehm, 2013). This supports the notion that women are dealing with sexist behavior in video games and often men do not see it as a problem as this is common to the gaming culture.
Due to this lack of major female involvement in game development and the video game business as a whole, there is still a large number of stereotypical female depictions in games.

Some of the best examples of stereotypical female depictions in video games are Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series and Helena from the Dead or Alive. Lara Croft and Helena are examples of unrealistically proportioned female characters that fight and play in skin-tight, revealing outfits (Downs & Smith, 2010). Despite the fact that Lara Croft is said to be an intelligent and skilled adventurer while Helena is a world-class opera singer and a Pi Gua Quan martial artist, they both are reduced to seductive women wearing barely any clothes (IGN, 2013a; IGN, 2013b). Female characters are significantly more likely to be shown partially nude, featured with an unrealistic body image, and depicted wearing sexually revealing clothing and inappropriate attire (Downs & Smith,

2010).
Females were more often supplemental characters, more attractive, sexy, and innocent, and also wore more revealing clothing (Miller & Summers, 2007). As shown by the attractiveness levels and revealing clothing, female video game characters are often hypersexualized as nearly 20 percent of the female characters in the sample were shown with unrealistic body sizes. In terms of clothing, 21 percent of female characters bared breasts, 13 percent flaunted their buttocks, and 20 percent displayed their midriffs. Additionally, female characters were twice as likely as males to be coded as wearing seductive attire (Downs & Smith, 2010). These hypersexualized and helpless female characters may also have implications for the development of gender roles and attitudes. For example, males exposed to this stereotypic portrayal of females as helpless sexual objects might adopt negative attitudes toward women. Similarly, it may affect female’s perceptions of how they should act as they may develop the impression that women are helpless and need to be rescued by men.
Further, even though some video games do not hypersexualize female characters, many video games may feature no playable female characters. While looking at video games on a whole, female characters are more underrepresented in comparison to their male counterparts and in some games video game players have more opportunities to select playing as a non-human character, such as a robot or anthropomorphized being such as Sonic the Hedgehog than a female character (Downs & Smith, 2010). Even when women are present in the game, they are less frequently the playable character as compared to the male characters (Ivory, 2006). This gender discrepancy itself offers messages to those who play these video games, especially younger players, that males are more important or interesting than females, and thus are portrayed more often. Provided that men actually want to play as male characters, it is then understandable that video games would have fewer female playable characters.
However, based on this assumption, one could imply that the gender discrepancy would be less pronounced in non-playable characters. However, this is not the case, as there are also fewer female non-playable characters in most games (Miller & Summers, 2007). In addition, it may be discouraging to females that there are few female characters in games and fewer female heroes. Both male and female video game players might take this to mean that women are insignificant or incapable of being a hero. This could also mean that women would have to idealize male characters or endorse the more stereotypic female portrayals such as the scantily clad supplemental character that helps the male hero.
In addition to stereotypical depictions of female characters, the consumption itself of video games tends to intensify sexist attitudes towards women. In fact, video game players may internalize cues from video game characters that create or strengthen cognitive scripts about gender roles and sexual objectification (Downs & Smith, 2010). By frequently seeing women as oversexualized beings through both repeated game play and by seeing similar depictions across a wide variety of games, video games can reinforce the belief that women are to be regarded as sex objects. This is strengthened further due to the disproportionately small waists and voluptuous breasts that female video game characters exhibit which may contribute to body dissatisfaction for female gamers and unrealistic expectations of women for impressionable male gamers. This may be reinforcing to some that women are supposed to have unrealistic body proportions and that women with these proportions or similar proportions can be treated as objects.
Looking beyond actual games as well as the gaming community, video games have real-world implications for sexism towards women. Adolescent males’ learning to objectify women from media may lead to negative social, legal, and relational damage (Downs & Smith, 2010). In other media besides video games, stereotypical images of women and sexism have been associated with television exposure and religiosity. However, there are findings that video game exposure is related to sexism irrespective of gender, age, socioeconomic status, and religion (Bègue, Sarda, Gentile, Bry & Roché, 2017). In addition to stereotyped female images, there is a clear impact of viewing sexualized females. Actually, there are short-term effects on gender stereotyping and female self-concept in emerging adults after exposure to sexualized female video game characters (Behm-Morawitz & Mastro, 2009). Female self-efficacy is also negatively affected during game play with a sexualized female character; this cautiously suggests that playing a sexualized video game heroine unfavorably influences people’s beliefs about women in the real world (Behm-Morawitz & Mastro, 2009). Again, this contributes to a correlation between stereotyped female characters and the perception of women outside of gaming.
An even more severe consequence of long-term exposure to video game violence is correlated to a greater tolerance of sexual harassment and rape myth acceptance (Dill, Brown, & Collins, 2008). This correlation was found by testing the effects of exposure to sex-typed video game characters versus images of professional men and women on judgments and attitudes supporting aggression against women (Dill, Brown, & Collins, 2008). Similarly, there is a relationship between video game consumption and rape myth acceptance via interpersonal aggression and hostile sexism (Fox & Potocki, 2016). This relationship is incredibly important; it could establish real-world implications for female survivors of sexual violence as those who consume video games would be more likely to deny the actual existence of a sexual violence incident. Overall, this contributes to the understanding of mass media’s role in socialization that supports violence against women. Therefore, gendered depictions of video game characters can influence perceptions towards actual women by them being more sexist or violent.
Sexism in games and the gaming community needs to be discussed because research clearly addresses how this media promotes the exclusion of women and glorifies sexism and stereotypical sexual depictions of women . While progress has been made towards reducing stereotypical and hypersexualized depictions of female characters, there is still more to be done in producing female characters, adding more secondary female characters, and having more “playable” female leads. With the youth of our culture being exposed to video games, in addition to adult players, change needs to take place first in video games and gaming culture before change can be reflected in everyday life. As it is currently constituted, it appears unlikely gaming will equally represent both genders. Most importantly, if exclusionary and misogynistic practices do not cease in gaming culture and if there is not an expansion of female representation in games, it seems unlikely sexism towards women in American culture will diminish.