The trailer for the video game Hitman: Absolution offers a nearly religious experience.
Nearly.
It opens on a group of nuns walking towards a building, interspersed with scenes of a man washing blood off his back.As the man gets dressed, the women get closer. They begin to pull out guns and a rocket launcher. And then they strip off their habits, revealing leather bodysuits, high-heeled boots and ripped fishnet stockings.
Spoiler: they are there to kill the man. But isn’t that obvious? A woman can’t assassinate a man unless she’s properly attired.
Welcome to a woman’s life in a man’s world: video games.
The hypersexualization of women is a problem in this industry.
The question is, “Why?”
Causes
It seems the answer is simple: sex sells, at least according to Roger Gonzalez, an avid gamer and blogger for the gaming site N4G.com
“Some video game developers and publishers just want to make money,” he said.“It’s not about the quality or dignity or integrity of the industry anymore. It’s about shelving out the least common denominator for any genre and milking it to no end.”
But David Mould, an associate computer science professor at Carleton University, said critics shouldn’t be too quick to judge the entire industry.
“It’s certainly true that women are portrayed in an unfortunate way in some games, but keep in mind that the video game industry is a very big place and there’s lots of games — sports games, Angry Birds, Farmville — where you don’t see these kinds of stereotypes at all. That’s not the content their game is about.”
Gonzalez said he agrees.
“Sure, we have a lot of good developers and publishers who make good quality games, but there are those who take advantage of gamers,” he said.
Gonzalez gave both Dead or Alive and Bayonetta as prime examples of the hypersexualization of women.
“[In Bayonetta] the titular character acts sexual in almost every scene and gameplay section she’s in, which leads to nothing being done for the narrative,” he said.
He added that the companies who tend to use sex to sell video games are also the companies who tend to release games that are not polished when released or that haven’t been playtested.
“They slap gamers with stereotypes and expect money . . . if they stick to a brand name or revealing cleavage,” he said.
But money may not be the sole cause of the problem. Mould said he believes the problem may have something to do with the consumers and creators.
“There are sexualized portrayals of female characters in many games,” he said.“I think it has to do with the intended audience and (well, to some extent they’re the same people) the people who are making these games.”
Gonzalez is not so certain. He said he doesn’t condone the rampant sexuality in video games.
In fact he said he, along with other gamers often find it distracting. It takes away from the game.
“[If it’s all] revealing clothing, selling sex, and ridiculous physics, then I can’t take it seriously,” he said.
Effective or Defective?
But don’t underestimate the players.
As consumers, they can be seen as a cause of women being hypersexualized, but they are also affected by it.
A 2008 study published by Children Now, a children’s health advocacy organization in California, looked at violence, gender, and race in video games. In terms of sexuality, it looked at not only girls’ reactions to how women are portrayed, but also boys’ expectations and attitudes towards females. The study showed that women tend to be more sexualized, with one in 10 characters having a voluptuous body.
The study came to the conclusion that showing hypersexualized characters in video games led to issues of lower self-esteem in girls.
It also left them with fewer positive role models in video games than boys.
These negative side-effects are some of the issues filmmaker Anita Sarkeesian highlights in her 12-video series, “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games.”According to her website, Sarkeesian wanted to create a film series that addressed the “limited and limiting way women are represented.” She put the project on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website, and met her initial funding goal in less than 24 hours.
The series began as a compilation of five videos addressing five different representations of women in video games.
The original five women were the Damsel in Distress, the Fighting F#@k Toy, the Sexy Sidekick, the Sexy Villainess, and the Background Decoration.
Repercussions
But the hypersexualization of women in video games doesn’t just affect women.
It can also influence men. The Children Now study showed that men’s expectations and treatment of females were changed just as girls were intimidated by the “ideal” women portrayed in video games. Mould said he personally believes hypersexualization can have repercussions in real life. He said while violence in video games may not cause violence, in real life, the same cannot be said of sexism in video games.
This might be because violence tends to be universally acknowledged as unacceptable and bad, he said.
Not everyone is so vehemently against sexism.
“Violence is not subtle. Sexism may be,” he said
Looking forward
It seems these people fighting for change have not gone unheard. Gonzalez and Mould both agreed changes to the industry have already begun. While Mould said creators are often responsible for the way women are represented in video games, many have also slowly been transforming the industry.
“The industry has matured. A lot of people making games 10 years ago are still making games, but now have a more nuanced look of the world,” he said.“One impression I have is that some of the worst offenders are the role-playing games. If you look at more recent ones like Skyrim, they have become quite a bit more balanced.”
Gonzalez said he agrees there has been a change in the industry within the last five years.
“What with many games becoming more cinematic there is growth in strong female characters,” he said.
“Of course, many men can consider them sexy, but they aren’t saying that because of the character’s body, but rather for the character’s personality, intelligence, contributions in the game, and natural beauty.”
