Essay about Equal Gender Representation in The Gaming Franchise

A more in-depth study may look at video games from a Marxist point of view, characterizing the games as a modern day “opiate of the masses” with multi-billion dollar corporations publishing the games to keep the proletariat occupied and oblivious to their plights. A feminist may cite the standard role of female video game characters as being the “damsel in distress” and even strong female characters usually being relegated to sex symbol status.

Author A.B. Harris declares a call to action in his article “Average Gamers Please Step Forward” published in 2012 as he talks about the how gamers shouldn’t settle for how the Entertainment Software Association put the average gamer into a box, Harris (2017) declares that the average gamers are far more credible and intelligent than the perceived demographics suggest (pg.503). He starts to build a bond between himself and the reader by connecting himself with the audience and asserting himself as one of them who all want the same thing, to “change the mainstream” (Harris, 2012, p.506) and show non-gamers they are more than over-sexed male adolescents with a penchant for violence (Harris, 2012, p.504). Harris uses his personal values and experiences

In the 21st century, a female will earn less than a male. “Will I have to explain to my daughter that her brother is gonna make more money doing the exact same job because he’s a man? If they both played sports since they were three years old, they both worked just as hard, but because he’s a boy, they’re gonna give him more money?” Serena Williams said in Glamour’s July issue (May). Gender roles play a big part in the 21st century, either with the pay gap or how someone is

This text is published by a media company called Mic. Their target audience is young people and they cover a wide variety of subjects such as News, Arts, and Technology (Mic /about). The author of this article is Sophie Kleeman, who, according to her profile on Mic.com, covers the “intersection of tech and culture” (Mic /profiles/152573/sophie-kleeman)

This study researches the potential effects on children by the use of gender representations and violence within popular video games. Outlined by the study of symbolic interactionism, the research questions the line between the representation of males and females, as well as how prominent violent topics are in games. These themes combined are used in order to hypothesize possible implications on young boys and girls.

In 2013, full-time female employee 's made only seventy-eight cents of every dollar earned by men, which means a wage gap of twenty-two percent. Women are nearly half of the labor pool and are equal if not main, jobholder 's in four out of ten households. Not to mention, women receive more college and graduate degrees than men. Women still coninue to bring in less than men. On average, women earn less than men in basically every profession that there is adequate income data for both women and men to estimate an earnings percentage (IWPR, 2014).

Imagine this. You 're in the middle of a really intense, stressful, and energetic game where it 's you against four other people. You are all alone and struggling to survive and as you 're getting shot at all you hear is some ignorant teenage boy from the other team say “you won 't win... get back into the kitchen and make me a sandwich.” Now I know you might be wondering where this is heading, but this is one of the few examples that women, when playing video games, have to deal with. What many do not realize, is how sexist many can be and how rude or hurtful the things they say can be. They also do not realize that many of these problems come from teenage boys who are not allowing any female to have a chance to show how good they could potentially be or how beneficial they could be to the team or game. Sexism is a big problem in the gaming community that needs to be changed. There have been many problems involving both men and women and it 's all because of how sexist games can be or just based on how sexist people are behind their anonymous alias. On one side of the debate, many, including those who cause the sexism, say these things are said and done because they believe it will increase sales and it will get more attention to their company or game, they believe that these type of games are what gamers want or what they believe is best for their fans, and they believe that these sexist comments are just jokes and messing around. Although some could believe these things

According to several sources around 42% of the American population plays video games, and around 1.2 billion people worldwide play video games today. Gaming has become an increasingly more popular hobby since its creation. As such the medium has obviously attracted a multitude of different people and groups, all consisting of diverse backgrounds, body types, sexes, races, nationalities and the like. However, contrary to the numerous demographics video games have come to attract, it is very evident the vast majority of them do not seem to be marketed toward many of them via game characters, and their importance, if any, in a game. Video games show an overwhelming amount of white male characters, despite the many demographics they reach. Of the characters that are not white, or male, that are represented, are often represented poorly. For example, many black characters represented in video games are often characterized as vulgar, and violent. Women represented in games are often characterized as support characters, or objects of sexual desire. Considering forms of sexism, racism, and other such types of prejudices are still prominent in modern society, and these representations obviously do not help how people see these marginalized groups. Ultimately, these representations, or lack thereof, affect people in society in a number of ways, by perpetuating prejudice and harmful stereotypes.

Given that association, this new study took a gander at whether exemplifying sexualized female symbols online changed ladies ' conduct. The Stanford scientists asked 86 ladies matured 18-40 to play utilizing either a sexualized symbol or a non-sexualized symbol (dressed provocatively or conservatively). At that point, specialists outlined some of those symbols to resemble the player encapsulating them. Those ladies who played utilizing sexualized symbols who seemed as though them were all the more tolerating of the assault myth, as indicated by the study. Subsequent to playing the diversion, ladies reacted to numerous inquiries with answers along a five-point scale (emphatically differ to firmly concur), including, "In the lion 's share or assaults, the casualty is indiscriminate or has a terrible notoriety." Those who played attractive symbols who looked like themselves will probably reply "concur" or "unequivocally concur" than those ladies who had non-hot symbols who did not seem as though them. Members were likewise requested that free compose their musings after the study. Those with sexualized symbols will probably self-generalize in their expositions after play. In spite of the fact that this is a little study and unquestionably not a conclusive response to the subject of how computer games influence female players, the outcomes do raise concerns. Upwards of 46% of gamers are ladies, and, as indicated by this examination, in a large portion of the most mainstream

For the same employer and for the same job in the US, on an average, women get 79 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues. This indeed is an alarming figure noting that women have come a long way in attaining education at par with men and are extremely competitive in every field they are working in. It is to be noted that 79.6 cents are calculated on an average basis. The actual figures for each different field of work are different and at least in one category, women get paid no more than 67 cents for every dollar paid for an equivalent job to men.

Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill is the first game in the Nancy Drew game series by Her Interactive. This game was released in 1998 (“#01 Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill”). It centers on the detective Nancy Drew attempting to solve the mystery of who murdered Jake Rodgers (“#01 Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill”). Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy is the nineteenth game in the series and was released, ten years later than the first, in 2008 by Her Interactive(“#19 Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy”). This game centers on Nancy’s quest to find her friend’s fiancé who has gone missing shortly before their wedding (“#19 Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy”). These games are important as they give a place for the female self to be the hero through Nancy. Nancy is never presented on screen as a character; instead she is merely presented as a silhouette and voice that allows one to put their selves entirely in her shoes. This is powerful; however there are still some problems with gender in these games, particularly in supporting characters. In comparing these two games, it becomes clear that the game from the earlier time period, 1998, although focusing on the same protagonist explicitly reinforces oppressive gender and cultural roles while the newer game implicitly reinforces these similar roles. This highlights the idea that even though games are attempting to progress towards being more open and empowering of both genders,

Gender disparity in video games is a topic that both scholars and major gaming icons have discussed before. However, the topic recently resurfaced with the upsurging population of female gamers. The integration of females was a spectacle that caused a massive culture shock. Many members of the gaming community were unsure how to handle the change and took to discriminating females. While discrimination may seem unimportant, many scholars and icons believe it is a prominent factor of gender disparity: an environment which typically favors males, a hostile or “toxic” atmosphere, and repeated stereotypes all manifest certain behaviors of both genders that can cause a disparity to grow. Although some sources claim gender disparity is evident in gaming as a whole, others insist the novelty of female discrimination in video games is less prominent due to a more leveled percentage of male-to-females in gaming. However, both agreed that the competitive gaming community is a different story. Time and time again the competitive gaming community was mentioned for its exclusion of women due to biased and misogynistic members who sexualize and degrade females. These members believe women are inferiors that encroach on their territory with unskilled and seductive natures. Therefore, for the females in the gaming community, their actions will shape the future of women in the competitive gaming community. The change in female treatment is detrimental to gender disparity. Not only because

I examined different professional industries in The United States to get a familiar understanding of gender inequality around me. Gender inequality does not particularly favor one sex in every professional industry. Joanne Lipman’s article, "Let’s Expose the Gender Pay Gap," dealt with professional women in the work force and the gender pay gap that exists between professional men. There is also a distinct gender gap between a woman and a man asking for a raise or promotion within a company. “Female doctors and surgeons, for example, earn 71 percent of what their male colleagues make, while female financial specialists are paid just 66 percent as much as comparable men. Other researchers have calculated that women one year out of college earn 6.6 percent less than men after controlling for occupation and hours, and that female M.B.A. graduates earn on average $4,600 less than their male classmates for their first jobs.” (Lipman). There is a statistical gender pay gap in The United States that is undeniable.

The portrayal of men and women in video games, as in other media, is a subject of research in gender studies. This topics is discuss in terms of sexism in video gaming. Especially, women are underrepresented or use as objectification in mainstream games. Women in video games are generally, as a rule of thumb, killed, raped, abused or rescued by the male heroes. This is extremely sad to see because the role of women in society is changing compare to ten years ago. Women has been proven themselves to be stronger and tough in different fields such as sports, politics, education but the representation hasn’t change.

Since the first video games were developed in the 1950 – the gaming industry haven’t looked back since. Throughout the century video games has gone through a huge development where the entire planet spend more than 3 billion hours a week playing video games. In the speech “Online Harassment and Cyber Mobs” Anita Sarkeesian, who is a female gamer, talks about the stereotypes of gaming. The type of people who don’t think women should be a part of the gamer world. A world, which is dominated by men and where online harassment of the other gender is something we see everyday. This is the stereotype Sarkeesian talks about and this is the stereotype she tries to get rid of.