Gender Roles and Sexism in Gaming: The Gamers' Perspective

It's disingenuous to bash Samus' intial reveal just because she was in a bikini, as that likely falls under an issue of the technological limitations at the time. If Samus had been in, say, what we now call the Zero Suit, she still could have been mistaken for a long-haired man (think Conan the Barbarian), since it was hard to emphasize the dimensions of breasts in a sprite of that size, and since it was a last-minute throw-in to the game, they didn't have time to develop a more elaborate female Samus design as they did at the end of, say, Super Metroid

"male-to-female gamer ration is about 60/40" this study is taking into account womans that play facebook games or iphone games?

If you want a strong portrayal of women, then you should check out the Fire Emblem series that is completely devoid of chicks with big breasts. These females also regularly fight against stereotypes, like the common "a princess has to be protected/saved, because she can't take care of herself". No matter how often men tell them to stay away from the battlefield, these women will ignore these orders to fight for their ideals, their country and their people, all the while showing positive feminine traits that go beyond beauty.

I think you are failing to take into consideration a lot of things. This is a huge topic for debate, and it's hard to paint the whole picture with sexism in something like this. First i would point out that computer programming(as a student in undergrad comp sci program at my school there were 2 females that were in most of my classes with around 30 males in those classes, same holds true during my post grad studies) , which is usually what game design stems from, is a pretty heavily male populated field. So these programmers when making games are going to most likely make something that they understand, or through their perception of things. So a male envisioning the hero of his story is most likely going to make that hero a male. I'm not excusing the sexism inherent in that, i'm just saying that is what is most likely going to happen. Same thing with a male designing female characters, he will do this through the lens of a males perception, biases, etc. Again not defending their choices, but if you wish to see change this has to come from the developers which would mean there needs to be a lot more females going into game development to put their thoughts, perceptions, and ideas into those games for their to be change. Another issue is analyzing a game character first and then the actions they take second. This isn't really how a game would be created. In most cases character design (including the voice acting, appearance, and attitudes) isn't the starting point of the game creation, developers would decide first if they were making an fps, rpg, action game, sports game, puzzle game etc. We can for the sake of this argument concentrate on the first 3 as the later are not really an issue when talking about characters and sexism. Those first 3 genre's of game will almost always have an element of combat. Meaning the core of the gameplay is based on the main character(s) going and killing other people. If its an fps , there are going to be guns by the very definition. Action games, same thing, you are going to be viscerally hacking people to bits. So when you say most males are "macho, manly-men with big guns", it's because they made the fact that its about being macho and big guns before the character was even thought about. If they then decided to make the main character female after making it about combat, this is why you end up getting dissent about if the characters are actually feminine or not. This gets into the question of what does it mean to be masculine or feminine. What i would ask is, in your opinion, what does it mean to be feminine? What game experience would stem from those traits? You hardly talk about your actual definition of a strong female, just who is and isn't and the debates therein. Many would say more female traits would include empathy, nuturance, sensitivity, and creativity. This would go against those roles of characters in most common types of game (fps/action/rpg) to a degree. Real people are more complex then just one set of characteristics but we are talking about fictional characters in a medium where the plot can very easily come second or third to the gameplay. RPG's can be very different and i would say many are quite fair to women. Sorry to go on for so long but one last point. If we are talking about body image, which you mentioned, games are just as stereotyping to men. What do male characters look like in video games? Most are tall, handsome, and impossibly muscular. Again this crosses through media lines, the same can be said of males in movies. Look at Kratos, Marcus Fenix , Ryu Hyabusa (who wears tighter leather then most females in games), and Goku. Hell, the default male shepard in Mass Effect is actually designed after male model Mark Vanderloo. This is the same body image standard, both sexes are portrayed in peak physical condition and appearance. Not a lot of ugly and fat protagonists out there on either side of sex , especially considering the general theme of most characters being people in intensely physical roles. Sexism is also prevalent in the online gaming community, though not in the games themselves, but the players. I think one of the big turn offs for many girls and women is having to listen to prepubescent males on chat and deal with their crude attitudes towards women.

"She makes it clear that she can escape when she disguises herself as Sheik." said a gamer in regards to Zelda. "Then she still goes back just to be saved by Link." She escaped from the castle with Impa, and then you'll never see zelda's true form until the end of the game... Really? Kidnapped? you never know.

I think FFX-2's story and Yuna's transformation from FFX is the most powerful message about women a hardcore game has ever done in video game history. The woman saving the helpless man has never been done before nor has it been done since then. Yuna was a stupid bitch who got told what to do throughout FFX and she looked helpless, it was pathetic. In FFX she is stealing shit from people, showing some skin, and doing what the fuck she wants (while saving everyone of course). Reviews who said shit about FFX-2's story are all a bunch of sexist white guys who prefer staring at a man's ass while playing. High Summoner Yuna, I salute you.

This stereotype is from Western Publishers at best... Japanese put Girls as heroine, boys that look like girls also... And as good female characters how have everybody forgotten about Resident Evil (even though it's month)?? They have Jill Valentine as a important, not over-sexuallized and independent (altough some times she have some help from males)... And as far as i remember all RE besides 4 have nice females.

@MrKhan: Thank you for making the exact point I was about to. Brenddude: Your comments are getting voted down because they're ridiculously ignorant. Please, take a women's studies course, or a sociology course in general, and learn how bigotry and discrimination works. I'm not saying you're bigoted, you're just clearly not equipped to identify it. Jumpin: The VAST majority of RPGs relegate the female characters to weak healers who have almost no stats in the way of attack and defense. That feeds into the stereotype so blatantly it makes my head heart.

Samus is still a female character made for men. Girls don't typically identify with characters like that, men do. Chrono Trigger - Marle, Ayla, Lucca Earthbound - Paula DKC2&3 - Dixie Kong Mario Kart, Mario RPG - Peach Smash Brothers - Zelda, Peach Final Fantasy - Rinoa, Terra, Quistis, Selphie, Tifa, Lightning, Vanille Dragon quest - Bianca, Meena, Maya, Ashlynn, Alena, Debora, Nera, Milly, etc... There are tons. Skies of Arcadia - Fina, Aika Xenogears - Elly, Maria, Emerelda Phoenix Wright - Mia, Maya In RPGs, there are lots of good female characters. In the vast majority. In Mario, I don't think people are really considering gender roles when the lead male character is also not the steroid pumped macho man either, he's a fat plumber who jumps around.

I like it how it is at the moment, most video games revolve around fighting and saving the world etc, it is expected for the main character to be a man. Video Games are easily dominated by males as well, I don't care about that 60/40 statistic, that stinks of shit, Facebook games and Angry Birds doesn't count. It's the same trend in the movie industry, unless it's a chick flick, you will not see many females as the main character, especially in an action movie. Most women in games are made so attractive because, let's face it, that's what guys want and it sells games. And once again, it's the same in the movie industry, the perfect example being Transformers, and it works vice-versa with chick flicks too. ...There is a reason why I have Lightning as my avatar. There is no sexism in games, developers are just pleasing their audiences, it's the same in any other industry.

One has to consider how appropriate is a woman in a game (same for movies) Having a female knight is actually pretty absurd unless she's named Jeanne (there's a reason she's so famous... she's the exception). Fantasy games could go by with witches/sorceresses/priestes (but no cross or it becomes an other aberation)... but that is about it, women were not hunters or warriors. Having a female soldier in WW.1-2 would also be absurd. Most sports are male focused, so no point in a woman there either. And right there we've taken out 40% of the games that even exist.

Nice article, despite the grammar errors.

did someone just call Shion a well-rounded character? No, she was nothing more than a whiny, petulant, immature emotionally unstable drama queen who was completely unlikeable, utterly stupid, and never, ever grows up for the series' duration. She was a big reason that the Xenosaga games had such flawed plots; it's hard to be invested when the protagonist can't justify their existence in the plot and acts like a spoiled brat. They should have just dropped her after the first game and focused on characters like Ziggy, chaos, and Jin.

Seriously...Who keeps thumbs-downing all the comments?