Examples Of Sexism In Video Game Industry

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.

Since their early beginnings the video game industry has given distorted images of people both physically and psychologically. Both men and women have been heavily impacted by their ridiculous body images of both men and women. The impact that video games are having on its users starts as young as 10 when most kids start to play video games. This number has declined about 7 years( Luke Plunnet Kotaku) Although they seem meaningless and just part of the story, components of video games can actually have a lasting effect on the minds of children leaving the future generation to be one thats racist and disrespectful to women.

As video games become more and more popular, we will inevitably see an increase in amount of video games being produced. The growth in popularity of video games is facilitated by the creation of a website known as Twitch.com. This website allows gamers and content creators to stream themselves playing video games online and interact directly with a live audience via chat. This new platform makes gaming both more accessible and more acceptable. The social stigmas that accompany video games are diminishing; in fact there has been an increase in competitive electronic sports as well. Logically, the growing interest in video games encourages programmers to make more and more games. Melinda Burgess et al presents an interesting perspective about video games. She explores the prevalence of racial stereotypes and how their effects are detrimental to society as a whole. In Burgess’s essay, “Playing with Prejudice: The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Video Games”, she provides fantastic commentary on how top selling video games show “overt racial stereotyping” (Lunsford et al 551) and negatively affect how we think. By providing statistics and data about the videogames that she is critiquing, she effectively shows that there is may be a correlation between video games and how we think and interact with the world around us.

Not only can video games support existing social and cultural positions, but they can also disrupt and change those positions, leading to

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

As soon as the video game world pressed the start button on their business, they never stopped playing. Like any video game, they hit major checkpoints and beat levels. From Pac-Man with joysticks to Angry Birds on iPads, the video game industry has a consistent history of success. Today, everyone knows someone who plays or has played a video game. New games and gaming consoles are constantly being advertised and released. They are even an entertaining method of keeping people up with the growth of technology. According to Melissa Terlecki, a psychology professor, “Involvement and experience with current computerized technologies…is important to provide both men and women…Because computer video games are a seamless lead-in to the

sexism: prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, but it does affect everybody, on the basis of sex

For years, the video game industry has catered almost exclusively to men and reinforced a heterosexual cis white male norm with regards to whom they portray as characters and which audiences they market toward. Walk into any toy store, and you’ll see most aisles clearly divided by gender: girls get dolls and dog collectibles while boys get racing tracks and action figures. Even toys that are marketed towards all children, like Legos, still reinforce this idea of binary gender separation: girls build princess castles, boys build space ships. Hoever, even though the products are exclusively marketed, all audiences are still targeted by the company as a whole. This is true for many different types of products, except for one huge, glaring exception: video games. While many other forms of media have mainstream activism to push their representation and inclusion along, video games aren’t often discussed in that kind of light beyond side blogs and dissertations.

Breuer et al. (2015) conducted their study in Germany to see if sexist video games produced sexist gamers. Unlike some of the previous studies, this study had a very large sample size and was conducted in three separate 'waves' (wave 1 = 4,500 gamers; wave 2 = 2,199 gamers; wave 3 = 902 gamers). Like other studies, they used a survey to measure the degree of sexism of gamers; they had utilized computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) in the study. The results of the study found that there was little to no evidence that perceived sexist video games contributed to sexist attitudes among gamers, contrary to previous studies in this field. The authors concluded there was no cultivation effect of sexist attitudes present in video games.

It only takes a second to attach a strong feeling or idea to a character in a movie, advertisement, or video game. Many characterization used are based on the assumed stereotypes, and are usually one-dimensional characters. Typically, these characterizations usually come from inherited family values, education, and the media. While stereotypes existed long before mass media, the media machine certainly helped to accelerate the cultural growth of all kinds of stereotypes. It is beyond this paper to answer why magazines employ these gender stereotypes, instead this research is designed to analyze

Throughout the years, society has become more accepting of diverse topics and ideas. As society continues to evolve, numerous entertainments have turned to displaying a greater amount of minority groups. Although movies and television shows are rapidly progressing towards this trend, video games seem to be cautiously starting to accept these ideas. Most of the advertising in video games are promoted towards the male population. Despite the fact men have previously been the dominant demographic in this type of entertainment, women have increasingly become a major part of the video game audience. In creating video games in which portray the opposite gender in a realistic way is beneficial to not only the female players but also to the male. It is important to promote the creation of gender-appropriate video games due to it decreasing the amount of sexualization and violence against women which assists in women’s self-confidence and men’s treatment towards women.

Male characters are most of the time are fit men. Female characters most of the time are fit women. What confuses me if no one ells is why people are so pissed about this, example, if a male gaming character is shirtless, no one gives a shit, if a female gaming character, is say in a bikini, its "sexualized". Point and case, some feminists attacked the game "hitman" for sexualizing woman and being able to kill the female strippers, but fail to take into account your a hitman, and normally you kill them if they are either in

The topic I want to research is how playing mature rated video games are associated how boys perceive women. I have known several young boys who play very mature video games and I have seen not only how women are portrayed physically in the games, but also how female characters are treated. I have noticed that the women are either portrayed in an overly sexual way or as damsels in distress. This topic is important to me because recently there has been more attention put on the obvious sexism against women in our society. Part of changing society starts with educating young girls and boys during the time period where they are initially taught how to view each other and what societal norms are. I believe that continuing to have scantily clad

Fox and Bailenson (2009) also mention that the stereotypes of the virgin and the vamp characters lead to Gick and Fiske 's (1996) theory of benevolent and hostile sexism. Benevolent sexism is the "belief that women are weak and in need of male protection and leadership." (Fox and Bailenson, 2009 in Gick and Fiske, 1996). On the other hand, hostile sexism, promoted by the vamp stereotype, "entails antagonistic beliefs that women are domineering and try to control men sexually." (Fox and Bailenson, 2009 in Gick and Fiske, 1996). Many gender activists believe that this is one of the reasons why there aren 't many female heroes since the birth of video games – because women are seen as mere sex objects and physically incapable.

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.