Sexism in video games (explained simply)

I get the overall sense that many people think, so long as female characters aren't like Ivy from Soul Calibur, there's real gender equality in games. That's far from the truth. I'll put it simple. There are 4 levels regarding sexism. 1 is most sexist. 4 is least sexist. If I had to take a guess, I'd say 90% of AAA games are in categories 1 or 2.

Level 1 - Sexualization

Sexualization of female characters, female stereotypes and/or an overall nasty attitude toward women

(Examples: GTA , Heavy Rain, majority of fighting games)

Level 2 - Lack of Purpose

Women are often absent or hardly exist in the game world. When they do, they don't have much of an impact on the narrative.

(Examples: Mario and Zelda)

Level 3 - Lack of Independence

Women have deep personalities and big role in the story, but that impact is largely based on their relation to men rather than their own ambitions.

(Examples: Bioshock Infinite, and the Last of Us)

Level 4 - Equality

Women are non-sexualized, have a purpose and have interests aside from their relation to male characters.

(Examples: Mass Effect series mostly, and Tomb Raider 2013)

I guess the same could be said about racism. Level 1: Games about Americans going to foreign countries to slaughter russians and middle-easterns. Level 2: A world of mostly white characters, with maybe 1 or 2 token deviations. And such.

And? what is it you want to debate?

Also 90% of all humans are in Cat 1-2-3 and noone even cares one bit. except the last 1% who apparently think equality means that there is no difference what so ever.

Video games have alot of minorities, Atleast woman get recognition.

Nobody ever mentions children and Ugly people.

What are we supposed to discuss?

Most gamers are male. Male like to see pretty titties. Thats all.

Can I have my degree now?

I think it useful to break it up into multiple levels like that.

Otherwise you end up with circular debates where people will use success in one criteria as an example of a positive result, and at the same time another person will use another criteria to point out a failure; both sides get annoyed because they both seem right when the issue isn't considered holistically.

The one thing I will caution is that you have to keep context in mind. After all, many white male characters don't even satisfy the levels 3 and 4 criteria even when they are the leads of their own game. Just look at every renta-kill solider or mercenary; cogs in a war machine and part of someone elses' plan.

This is the mistake the GS appraisal of TLOU made; criticising the game for only treating female characters as human (which the author of that article said was to be expected rather than praiseworthy) but failing to acknowledge that videogame characters on the whole aren't depicted as so human to begin with. The criticism made sense in a way, but came across as overly picky when you look at the upshot.

You also have to consider the audience and message rather than assuming that if you don't get to level 4 you are part of a society wide problem; sometimes certain peoples simply aren't part of a story, not out of unfairness, but because the story is told from a particular perspective.

Ignoring that point when considering a game is like accusing black fiction of being racist for being written from the perspective of, and written for, black people; the criticism would be completely missing the point.

But the distinctions the OP makes are still useful when looking at mass market games which pitch themselves as being for a wide audience (which is pretty much what most AAA games are becoming).

The fact that it's not enough to be at a level 2. I guess the forum is a whole different crowd than the comment sections.

So Mario sexist. Yep, I'm out.

@ ShangTsung7

Whats wrong with you ?

@shangtsung7: That sounds like a masochists' idea of a good time, What games have you been playing?

Give this topic a rest.

@SEANMCAD:

You are not using a very good argument there.

Honestly anyone who keep blaming the industry and just expecting the established people to change are morons.

i am 100% sure that if these people were correct they would make their own games and earn a ton of money from their "genderequality" approach to the subject, also finance wise i am even more sure that there are plenty of feminist groups out there who would pour tons of cash into such a endeavour if it was the case that so many wants this.

And what would speak louder than that? i mean if a game which is gender equal, none-sexist and treats everyone equal makes more money than any other game, you can be sure that it would cause others to follow.

Tomb Raider didn't really convince me of Lara being a strong female lead or independent or competent. All she did was fall and stumble over herself. I guess the devs thought, 'Impaling Lara through the face, stomach, leg, etc., having her punched in the face, and stumble off cliffs or fall down ledges multiple times makes for good gender equality and a great female protagnoist.' I thought it was a fun game to play, and laugh at how clumsy Lara was; my girlfriend who was also playing it told me 'Stop! It's not her fault! It's Tomb Raider! You cannot expect much for story and character!' I agreed and continued to laugh.

There is no sexism in games really. People will always find what they want to.

But that's whats wrong with our society being so overly politically correct that now you cant go 5 minutes without hearing about how something is sexist, something is overly violent, something is racist when 95% of the time they are not at all. Its just overly sensitive people with too much time on their hands that think they are somehow important enough to tell everyone else in the world what they should be thinking and doing.

But its always a woman being portrayed as a sex object in a game in some stereotypical fashion and being exploited despite the fact no one cares women in games women are the minority and there are thousands of male game characters that are shown in the stereotypical male fashion that can be considered sexist as well but no one cares unless its a woman. But then again when it comes to racism no one cares unless the person being portrayed in a racist manner is black. Equal rights don't matter to straight people, it only matters if someone is gay. And so on. Our society is full of politically correct pussies.

stirring up the forums again? Where's Half-life 2, Portal and Beyond Good and Evil?

the eye candy has become too ingrained into our society to expect that it would die off within a few years. guys wont be noticed AS much by society at large if they look good, but waaay more people can't help but notice a good looking woman.


Over time publishers will be more receptive to depicting real people, and being a little more respectful to growing audiences, but not completely divorced on the idea of selling 'arousal'. As far as the pervyness goes from japanese games and media, just look at how relationships are over there. *** dating sim games sell big. The population is aging, theres probably a lot of below the surface angst to account for over there, you wouldn't see as much soft-core porn where there's no need or market for it.

I like Dragon's Crown :)

well said m8, thank you! you are 100% correct on everything mentioned and i couldn't put it better myself, these days it seems if you're male you're ridiculed for it, if you're strait you're ridiculed for it, and if you're white you're REALLY ridiculed for it. freedom these days seems to only exist if you're gay, black, or at the very least female, everyone else in this hypocrisy filled politically correct sh!t hole we call a country is SOL and it sickens me to the core what has happened to this once great nation.

Haven't played Beyond Good and Evil. I don't think Portal 1 has enough characters to make an accurate judgment as something like let's say an RPG or something.

I'd say Half Life 2 is a level 2 (Gabe Newell would be happy to hear that). Alyx Vance is not sexualized at all. But at the same time, she exists to gratify the player. She has no deeper ambitions in her life, doesn't have any real personal struggles or dillemmas. She's basically there to make you happy. She's the ideal girlfriend for many gamers. Her main trait is that she is likeable and relates to the male badass (in a lab coat). I think she has more of an effect on the male hero than on her own life.

i think if this game didn't have such sexist art, way more people would've played it. usually, sexism sells, but this time i guess they pushed it a bit too far.

Thanks for your insightful reply. I wish more people on here had your maturity.

As for Carolyn's TLOU write-up, I entirely agree that like 90% of male characters are empty hollow cliches. But I do feel there's a big difference between how male characters and female characters are often portrayed. In terms of character personality, I agree. Women aren't much better off than men. But when we get to level three, that's where the issue hits. As paper-thin as the motives for the male characters are, women often have none of their own that exist outside of their connection with a male character.

As for what is a problem. I'd say level 1 is a huge problem. As for level 2 and 3, it's something that I do think need to improve upon for sure, but I wouldn't reject a game entirely just because it doesn't represent female characters well. I had some issues with TLOU and Bioshock Inf's portrayal of women, despite their accomplishments. And i'm a bit upset at Nintendo's philosophy of "we're just trying to make fun products - not take on political issues". Whilst creating a world that's 99% white people where women have no real positions of power at all. That said, I still had a ton of fun with Link Between Worlds even if the horrible CDI Zelda's were more progressive.

This guy knows what's up.

Good lord that's wrong. Mass Effect is possibly one of the most blatant offenders when it comes to sexualizing females, particularly since ME2: every Miranda conversation is a parade of ass shots and every Asari that there is is there for little more than nerd wank material. You can argue that it's probably one of the series with the better written females, but don't you dare deny the sexualization, that's just insane.

You can do that with any character. I can make statement about why Princess Peach is a strong female character.

Ehh. For Hl2 I've heard that arguement from Errant Signal and the like. Because she's not challenging you or questioning the audacity of an entry level scientist turned into a gun toting warrior messiah. or have her own campaign makes her a vessel. But you can't interact as freeman, there is no opportunity to do something that pisses her off or betrays her principles

I think Alyx Vance was pretty okay and seemed visceral enough to me given the circumstances, and her aspirations are characterized through what actions she does show. She's a chip off the old block, but appears bit more assertive than Eli and she's protective of him, her only parent through this situation. shes a handsy scientist, a quick outside the box thinker who is lonely and not as trusting of cold 'any-means-necessary' scientists' and largely relies on her spirited and inventive nature to keep going.

In this limited exposure story regarding questionable ethics with science, she's meant to serve the role of the 'humanist' who sheds light on the inhuman actions of breen and the betrayal from judith mossman. Doing that...I'd put her in a 4. She may not be Samara or Tali from Mass Effect but those are completely different problems and stories, and we can't compare battlescars to create a websters lexicon of a ideal female standard for depiction in modern fiction. She saves your life from a bunch of metro guards at the start. Plus a suppression field was put upon humanity to discourage arousal. Hardly the backdrop to encourage 'male gaze'

and that's pretty much how EVERY ally character in Hl2 regards freeman and remember you just came out of the space time continuum looking the same as you did in Black Mesa, in a post apoc society with paranoid persecuted people being told war stories about you. Naturally people would look for any sort of encouragement they could get if their future was looking to be turned into a stalker. I'd ask how are we seeing a bunch of plain american black and white people and only 1 local (Father grigori) in the middle of friggin Ukraine or Russia, but I was immersed enough from what I got, no sense in turning up my nose at every inconsistency.

I can't wait to see what happens when a developer makes the mistake of implementing a lower strength cap for female toons in their RPG. Because, you know, it's physiologically accurate to say that at this stage of evolution men have a greater physical strength potential than females (for all you non-reading mofos out there that means the strongest man is going to be stronger than the strongest woman, not that all men are stronger than all women). Technically, such a game design decision would be fair and realistic, but you know it would never fly. And I don't see the people clamoring for equality asking for this sort of change, either, because let's face it, it's flattering and flattering stereotypes are perfectly acceptable in our hypersensitive world.

@drekula2: Dragons Crown actually sold quite well.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/12/04/dragons-crown-persona-4-golden-put-up-huge-numbers

^^ THIS. omg THIS! brilliantly put m8. its hilarious cause its sooooo true, but people hate the truth, especially in todays society my goodness. this is why i can't help but laugh my ass off when i see all these television shows on channels like sci-fi which depict skinny 100lb women beating the crap out of 200lb to 300lb men, its so ridiculous its cute. lol

this

I really don't see why people keep saying mass effect series fights sexism. There are way better examples:

Alice: Madness returns

Super brothers sword and sorcery

No one lives forever series

Monkey Island series

XCOM enemy unknown

Castlevania Lords of shadow series

Half-life

Portal

Just because a woman carries Guns, issues order and talks and walks in a manly manor (Such irony there) doesn't mean it's fighting sexism.

Every time i see the word sexism thrown around games i can't avoid to think ugly looking people want devs to make ugly looking characters, there are very few times they are genuinely sexist,

why would you assume that?

It may have been said already, but there is a (semi) related video to this topic made by Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'. While not about sexism specifically (it's more about female characters in games in general), it does explore some of those issues.

Hmm, because its true? most women involved in "feminism"are usually not very attractive.

Good post OP. Men like to deny that sexism exists in video games, but it does exist and it is a problem. I don't think sexualization is too big of a problem, I'm mostly okay with that but the second and third point is a big issue for me. We need more strong independent females in video games.

The existence of sexist games isn't a problem just like the existence of sexist movies isn't a problem. Each and every game director out there should be free to make whatever game they like. The real issue is there are too few positive examples of games that are gender neutral or even targeting women.

Most games are aimed at men because more men play games than women, and more men make games than women. Just because there's a visible gender differential doesn't mean that institutional sexism is at work within the industry or that any form of discrimination is behind it. More men make games today because 10 years ago more Comp Sci grads were men than women, because 10 years before that more men than women were taking Maths and Computer Science GCSE's and 10 years before that far, far more boys than girls were waking up on Christmas to an NES or ZX Spectrum etc.

Today there are more women playing games than ever before, hopefully in a few years that'll equate to more women taking IT and engineering degrees because at the minute unfortunately, fewer women than ever before are. If you want any proof go crash a Comp Sci lecture, I guarantee it'll be a regular sausage-fest. Every IT and engineering field has the exact same problem, they just don't cry about it on the internet as much. If you really want to help combat sexism in the game industry, when you have a daughter buy them Lego and a Raspberry Pi instead of a doll and a plastic oven. Signing an online petition condemning a director that had the audacity to give his character huge boobs really isn't helping as much as you think it is.

I will say it again also there are plenty of women who play videogames and continue to play. They are not just dumb enough to go crazy over unimportant things and focus on having fun.

But If these few very vocal feminists were correct, why wouldn't they just band together and make their own studio and their own games? again money talks so if you are correct that "why would a women play a male" there is a huge unexplored market out there. And well as to the idiot part, well you again use weak arguments and pointless points that are proven wrong.

Question

Is sexism sexism if the beholder doesnt see it as sexism? Because noone will argue that some women mostly without beauty will perceive beautyful sexy women as portrayed sexism.

Also what do you call strip-clubs or hooters? a sexist club run by terrible men that just want to put their foot down on all women?

1: That is a guess and my point still stands.

2: Not referring to you but more general like Carolyn, Polygon, Danny after he moved to SF, and that Anita Sakar something. and no don't think its in that category

3: We are not talking about a bridge here, we are talking about making games, and if you feel that passionate about a subject and standing on a box yelling doesn't help, well staying up there and yelling even louder might not be the prudent course to take. And who doesn't like money? or are you on of those persons who stands around saying "if ain't broke don't fix it"

Its not being mean or dismissive to say 'if you want to see something, then build it.'

If you can't program, then write up the idea. Look at the guy who re-wrote the ending of Mass Effect 3. To me thats more a statement than a vlog. network with folks. A lot of devs out there have been getting laid off. Plan a budget. Even if its only hypothetical. A lot of independent titles have been making more impact these years than previous ones.

Can't lay everything at the door of all big AAA gamemakers and suddenly say they're all responsible for being politically correct because of how many millions of people play. Sure publishers exploit sex and violence for marketing, but consumers by and large, still show interest as long as its not in abysmal taste.

With the 60 to 100 hour workweeks these people spend on creating and programming, away from their families. They are going to make the games they want to play and talk about the things they want to talk about. If they want another male fantasy with wank material for motivation, then oh well whatever gets it finished faster because there's still a market for it.

Diverse open minded teams create diverse works. Its as simple as that.

I've been trying to promote equality ever since a year ago or so after a co-worker bitched at me and was offended that I held the door open for her. I decided to stop getting up and giving women my seat on the subway which has been the best decision. they benefit because they're treated equally and I get to keep my seat. win/win.

give them their videogames, salaries or whatever they want and give men the ability to give return punches. it's best to be fair.

This is a worthless subject matter to worry too much about. To each person what is sexism is different. I am a bit piss off at those anti-female that call Princess Peach just a damsels in distress, but that is just me.

Also, no mater what is done with a female character they have another label about speech about what that female characters is bad for females.

Yes, sexism in games still exists. You don't have to be a woman or a feminist to acknowledge that it still persist. All it takes is a bit of honesty.