The Musing - Sexism in Online Gaming
Anita Sarkeesian became the target of death threats and hates mail when the gamer spoke up about the misogynistic culture of the online gaming world (Time, 2015).
She voiced concern over the portrayal of female characters who more often than not were damsels in need of rescuing, prostitutes to be murdered or simply overtly sexualized females (Rollingstone, 2015) as well as the lack of female protagonists.
Now, I am no gamer but when I look back at times I have engaged in play, I’ve often had similar feelings before putting them in the ‘that’s just how it is’ basket. These games are targeted towards males and the characters are designed accordingly. When I think more about it though, I agree with Sarkeesian.
Grand Theft Auto was a favorite of mine growing up and although I never actually tried to complete any of the missions, I did enjoy finding an empty parking lot and seeing how many nice cars I could collect before I was arrested. During my time as a picky, fumbling car thief, it did bother me that I had no option but to be a ‘man’ and that I was constantly approached by scantly clad women asking if I wanted a good time.
Prostitutes are also regularly the targets of beatings from the protagonist player for no other reason than because they can. Does this reflect how people feel towards prostitutes in day-to-day life? Would they throw a virtual punch at a mother walking with a pram in Liberty City?
The series is also infamous for allowing you to have sex with a prostitute and then kill her to collect the money.
So are women being objectified?
1. Dragon’s Crown was released in 2013 with a character called ‘The Sorceress’, a name that conveys the image of a strong and powerful woman. This was how she was depicted:
So we get a strong and powerful woman from this picture? All i get from this is boobs.. ridiculously large boobs. And isn’t that what woman have been campaigning against for years, to be seen as more than a pair of breasts? Yes, gaming is ‘fantasy’ but that’s just it – who’s fantasy?
2. Soulcalibur’s character Ivy:
When Meg Jayanth of the Guardian conducted a study of game users in 2014, it was discovered an astonishing 52% of gamers are female, a significant rise over recent years. Game design culture however is still a male dominated world and the games still being produced are a testament to that.
Game designers are doing amazing things with graphics, effects and plot lines today, surely we are nearing a time when the use of scantly clad women with ridiculously over sized lady parts are no longer needed to lure users in? A time for an even ratio of female to male protagonists and non-objectification of women?
These were questions posed by Sarkeesian amongst others, #Gamergate ensued:
With females making up over half of all gaming users, a shift is culture is going to happen, the question is, how much back and forth is it going to take to get there?