As a girl gamer, from time to time I find that I have to deal with abuse. From the dimwitted COD jockeys I come across on Xbox Live to the moronic WOW players who hassle me the second they hear a female voice on Teamspeak. It's not pleasant, but it's something I've learnt to deal with over the years, and for the vast majority of the time it isn't so much of an issue that it would ever deter me from carrying on my love and obsession with gaming. For example, I have spent many hours on Guild Wars 2, in a guild made up of mainly men, and I have never experienced any sexism or been treated in a derogatory manner or seen any of the other female members being treated differently due to their gender. But one rare occasion where I was verbally abused due to my gender was enough to make me want to write this post.

In one particularly bad session of Modern Warfare 3 I made the mistake of going on voice chat. I was the only female on my team and over the course of the next hour here is just a small sample of what I had to endure.

Dumb b****Why do you keep dying? Are you distracted by the kitchen or something?I bet you are on your periodYou should stick to dancing games or pet gamesSlag! F**k off and suck some d**k The derogatory sexual talk became too disgusting to write down. Now, again, I am fully aware that this represents just a tiny minority of male gamers, and even my boyfriend who is a beast at that game (I suck, hence the abuse) experiences trash talk so he pointed out regardless of gender you will always experience issues like this. But I was pretty upset by the situation. Here I was, being subjected to sexual verbal abuse all due to the fact of my female voice. They couldn't see me. For all they knew I could have been 12. They then had the nerve to friend request me and ask me for my real name and Facebook! Would they have done the same thing if I was a boy?It got me thinking as to why females, particularly in gaming, are so often verbally abused and stereotyped. Could the portrayal of women in games themselves be partly to blame? Let's explore this a little!

Let's back up for a second and think of the iconic female heroines in video games from recent times. 

Noticing any patterns? Now I don't know about you, but I can't recall every seeing Solid Snake, Link, Cloud Strife or any of the great male heroes of gaming posing in their undies or sticking out their asses in every cut scene they possibly can. Now the reasons why women are objectified in games and what's wrong with it has been debated and written about a million times, but my biggest gripe with it is that these women are so unreal its laughable. So many of the great male protagonists of the gaming world are fallible, physically and emotionally but that's what makes them believable and that's why we love them. But when it comes to character design for a female lead, so often it's Let's give her really BIG **** make her wear skin tight leather and she's gotta be a badass...and OH don't forget the really BIG ****!.
In recent times, there are signs that change is afoot, and that's great to see. Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 is a perfect example of a woman portrayed in a positive manner. She is strong and independent but without shoving it in your face. Alyx is a realistically portrayed as a very capable woman and she does it all wearing appropriate clothing and a realistic body frame! She's one hot chick you don't want to mess with, but shes not overly sexualised and as a result of this we never objectify her in that way.  
Which moves me on nicely to Lara Croft. She is without a doubt the queen of female gaming icons. But as much as she is courageous, strong and super-intelligent, all too often she is reduced to a simple sex icon. She sells because she has the page 3 figure, the tiny waist and perfect ass, and don't forget her ridiculously over the top chest. She is the 'perfect' woman aesthetically at least, but as a girl I find her hard to relate to because she is so unnaturally unrealistic. I always found her character to be too artificial. That's exactly why I am so overjoyed that Crystal Dynamics reboot of the series finally gives us the Lara Croft her character always deserved. Lara is still the brilliant, resourceful and athletic archaeologist, but gone is her trademark cockiness and over the top, shove it in your face sex appeal. Instead this is the story of a young, vulnerable and naive woman left to fend for herself in a hostile environment, forced to defend herself. We pay more attention to Lara as a person than ever before, experiencing the not-so-glamorous side of a human being coming to terms with own mortality, reminding us that heroes are made, not born. This is a Lara I can relate to. A Lara who has to deal with physical and emotional struggles, forcing her to emerge from them a stronger person.

So the point to all this? Well Lara doesn't have a huge chest this time nor is she wearing tiny hot pants and kicking ass with the cocky bravado of Iron Man. She's just a girl pushed to extremes, forced into violence, but more importantly. she's believable. Crystal Dynamics didn't have to rely on the 'sex sells' route. Yes she is still insanely beautiful and she learns to be a total badass but removing the over the top sexuality of her former iterations makes her human, and ultimately it makes her more universally likable as a character. This time around she is appealing for all the right reasons. They could have taken the re-branding of Tomb Raider in so many different ways, but this is for me, was the perfect path. I'm proud of this iteration of Lara. No longer is she the glorification of men's desires but a heroine who women will admire and respect. 

It's refreshing to think that more and more female characters aren't just being depicted as busty action heroes full of swagger and bravado all the while half-naked with their chests about to pop out. Which brings me back to my first paragraph. Do the stereotypes of women in games influence the way men treat women in real life? There are deeper gender issues here to consider outside of gaming of course. This was once a male dominant past-time and hobby. But now gaming is as gender equal as anything else in society yet still girl gamers are objectified and abused and still the vast majority of female characters in games are created as page 3 style bimbos. Either way, I believe that characters like the new Lara are the key to slowly but surely shifting the way women are perceived and treated in the world of gaming. In the mean time, I'll stick to using my Darth Vader voice changer *thumbs up*. Written by Charlotte SaundersEdited by Imran Almuttaqi