Gender Equality In America

The United States of America is 240 years old and is about to have its 45th president, and all 45 of them have been men, but the numbers do not tell the entire story. The most recent election had a female candidate many called one of the most qualified ever to run for president, and a male candidate that had never been involved in politics. When looking at the resumes of the two, the more qualified one is the winner, right? Wrong. While this example of women in politics is disappointing, it is still a major accomplishment for the country because it is the furthest a woman has ever gotten. There are several reasons as to why women are becoming more respected in our society, but the biggest influence is popular culture. Biological sex and gender …show more content…
Video games are including female characters at an unprecedented rate, and this is reflective of the popular culture’s evolving depiction of gender equality.
One of the very first video games ever created was Pong in the early 1970’s. The goal was to use the paddle to hit the ball past the opponent and score. When evaluating these early games like Pong the gender equality portrayed in it is clearly not evident. That mythology comes later in time when the gaming industry is evolved enough to include ideas beyond just a game. Pong may have just been invented for profit and consumer fun, but it has caused a ripple effect, which paved the way for current, and future, video games. Video games have changed exponentially since the 1970’s and one way this is shown is the significant amount of games today with a woman as the leading character. The gradual rise in female gamers might be attributable to the sharp increase of videogames that have a leading female character (Frank). Allegra Frank works for Polygon, which is a highly touted news source used by the gaming world. The evidence she uses to warrant her claim is from the findings of study conducted by the Entertainment Software Association. The increase of …show more content…
When people like the president of International Game Developers Association say video games model societal views, it is something to take note of. Mass Effect and Pokémon have reflected popular culture’s views on gender equality, but they are just two of the many that have. The influence of ideas and views can range from television to a newspaper, but video games are the best source to look at because of its audience. As stated prior, when children play they have the mythologies heavily reflected upon them. There still are people and organizations that oppose the trend of increased female involvement, and an excellent example of this is the Gamergate movement. Gamergate is the movement to protect the gamer identity, based off of the ethical dilemmas caused by releasing names. This is in response to the drastic harassment some females face from males in online gaming communities. This movement does defy the ideas pushed by popular culture, but the amount of support gender equality is vastly increased. This last election may not have produced a female president, but it did help establish the idea of a possible female presidency. Popular culture is who deserves the most credit for this possibility because of the numerous platforms it uses to spread its ideas. The gaming industry made this