Sexism In Videogames

Superior Essays
Did you know that during 2006 the ratio of girls to boys playing videogames was 38:62? In addition, over the past 8 years it has it has increased to 48:52. Even though the gaming community has always been a place for girls just as much as boys, there is still a lot of sexism in it. It has been said that by next year women will become the majority in the gaming community. Sexism in videogames is posing a problem in many more ways than one. It has created hostile gaming environments, overly sexualized or demoralized women, and it could taint the minds of children. Sexism has created many hostile environments in the gaming community. Especially in massive multiplayer online games. Mics have made it much easier to harass or make poor comments about people they do not know and have almost no consequences as a result. The only consequence really is just that person(s) being reported. Moreover, most of the time doing that is just the same as the empty threats that they spit out. This becomes even more escalated when a person that has a gamer tag that indicates that they are a woman. Once that happens you can have boys asking for phone numbers, personal questions, or just plain insults and harassment. Some harassment would be the criticism of the presence of a woman and their interests, death threats, and demanding sexual favors in exchange of virtual or real money. This is not where it ends. There is also the use of the creative freedom of the emblems that people can make on certain online games. Within these emblems, you can find very sexist pictures that people have created. This is not the only place where the images of women are slandered. The images of women in many games today are either overly sexualized, views the girl as a hopeless damsel in distress, or as an object to be won. …show more content…
Anita Sarkeesian, feminist media critic, blogger, and public speaker, was once sent into hiding by a death threat because of her views on women in video games. She created videos called Tropes vs. Women. In her videos, she explains how women are portrayed in video games. She says in one of her videos that most damsel in distress based games follow the Subject-Object Dichotomy. Saying that the subject, or main character that is usually a male, must find the object, or the girl. A great example of this would be the game Super Mario Bros. where Mario is the Subject and Princess Peach is the Object. Using this plot device makes the women more of a prize to be won or a goal to be accomplished. To tell whether this is being used you must be able to change the girl into something like a ball without changing the actual story. Then you have the games where the female characters are playable but are overly sexualized. Take Mileena’s third costume in Mortal Kombat 9, Flesh Pit. It is literally just an unfished mummy costume while she is wearing nothing under the wrap. “Dead or Alive uses more computer power to model Kasumi 's breasts than NASA had for the moon landings. That 's actually not a joke” (Cracked Staff). Everyone knows the saying ‘Sex Sells’ but when is it enough. If we do not find a way to tone it down, we may end up with unwanted consequences. Children are our future, but do we want them growing up thinking that that is how women should be represented? The boys will grow-up believing girls are just an object and the girls may grow-up believing just that. In addition, just because the game that the graphic content is on is ‘Rated M’ that does not mean that they do not play it. Even GTA5 (Grand Theft Auto 5) is played by 10-year olds and that game has a strip club in it. At that strip club, you can even get a lap dance throw money at the girls, and take one home with you. If you raise the standards to buy the game, the kids will still get their little hands on them. They have parents, Christmas, and begging puppy faces. Their parents will eventually crack and buy them the game for Christmas. The only way to stop this is to try to change the content of the game. The violence

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