If we start talking about the minority of videogames that aren't violent driven narratives like puzzle games and adventure games, you'll find tons of female leads...Take the Longest Journey that has two lead characters, both female. Take Syberia...Take Portal in which both protagonist AND antagonist are female (yes, glados is an AI, but it's definitely a female voice)...Gone Home, Beyond: Two Souls, etc. The problem right now isn't so much sexism as it is viable role shortage. We're not used to thinking of women as purveyors of violence and so long as our games remain violence focused, women leads just aren't going to have the same presence.
I'm not much of a writer myself, but this is something that my writer friends (who are also female) struggle with. To paraphrase what they've said on the matter, "It's just easier when you're writing a guy in those roles. You can beat the crap out of him on one page, and on the next page you can have him beat the crap out of the guy who attacked him a page before. And no one's going to have a problem with it. These guys are having a fight: everyone gets that. No one misses the point, no one sees more than there is. It all gets a lot trickier when women enter the mix. If it's male/female violence regardless of the perpetrator, even if you're clear to present them as physical equals, it may bring unwanted baggage to a scene that you as a writer didn't intend, but still have to consider the impact of if you want to write effectively. It's hard to be effective when you're "triggering" your audience constantly. Likewise it's hard not to either fetishize or fall into certain stereotypes if it's woman on woman violence.
It's not that we don't want to represent our own gender when it comes to this subject matter, but there are challenges when compared to writing men. Frankly it's often not worth the trouble."
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