Comments on: how to fight sexism in games: stop making cool female characters

By: Ankur

Ankur — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 15:59:38 +0000

This problem about women being “objectified” exists only because of the way lads and lasses
are brought up…. seperately, differently..
And yes, this happens all over the world, for example, in the UK, girls were averse to exercise
as they considered it “un-feminine” and those
who were brave enough to join boys in football
games were dissed as “tomboys”.
As long as people just don’t implement practises
that ensure equality, you won’t get it… plain and simple.. Video games were seen as a sort
of adrenaline rush, which WAS believed to be the
a feature of lads like us, but not girls..
As the market became competitive, you’d naturally
expect sexuality to enter the picture (Just look
at all those ads today, sex sells and its a fact)
and because the audience was primarily male,albeit due to improper social conditioning,
this was bound to happen…
And yes, it’s true that you may win a hundred battles and still be vanquished in the war,because people won’t change unless the
way in which they’re brought up changes.

By: Charlotte

Charlotte — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:43:33 +0000

Wow, I completely agree with your article, but for the moment the same problem is still in television as such, where strong females characters are hailed, but shouldn’t need to be, as they should be a normal occurance.
The recent Battlestar series is a really good show of what you hope games will evolve into, no big deal is made, where women are engineers, pilots, soldiers, everything; and that’s how it should be set in the future, I really hope that games do evolve to this standard. I only wonder how long it will take til we see a game full of both male and female characters performing similar jobs.
Though I must say I really cannot stand the ‘overboobified, underwaistified, barely-dressed stripper’

By: AlvaroX (A BOY who heavily desires equality! A guy who wants to abolish "Gender Roles)"!

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:06:17 +0000

Why can’t gender equity be fully realized in this DAMN society? Why do many people look upon the gender to determine a character’s role and personality? I hate this!
Girls shouldn’t be oppressed by being side-kicks or supplemental characters to commonly-lead male heroes. They should be independent!
At this state, I am dreaming about a game, a game where for once, they made a girl look “gangster”, and thug-like! I mean, that would be really cool. She would have the same cloths as a gangster male would do!
If is one thing that will enhance my life, its gender equality. No gender is superior than others. I believe female characters can become popular among both, male and female.
Look at Mario, and Sonic the hedgehog! They have a lot of fan-boys and even fan-girls. Why can’t a female character achieve the same status?
A female character can dress the same way a male can. They don’t need to reveal their body and all sorts to define them; they can just be who they are: The Lead character!
I wish I was running for president….I would surely approve the “Equal Rights Amendment” that has been denied 30 years ago.
I hate PATRIARCHY!
I hate SEXISM!
I LOVE and WANT GENDER EQUALITY, and by any means, I will do ANYTHING for it, even if it means risking my dignity, pursuit of happiness, or finding myself dead!

By: The Happy Friar

The Happy Friar — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 02:04:59 +0000

I was… amazed (shocked isn’t the right word) when I saw there was female soldires in the CoD series under the Russian campaingns. I’m so used to NOT seeing women on the front lines I assumed they were all men until one day (I belive it was in CoD2, even though I played through CoD1 near release) I saw a ponytail.
The intergrated them so well they were a natural part of the game! (Q4 could of been this way too, hopefully ETQW will be)

By: Jona

Jona — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 00:04:10 +0000

I recently played Gears of War round my friend’s house, and I also brought up the fact that the only female I saw in game is barely seen and when she is, it’s out of the up close action. And likewise reading this article from the beginning, Quake 4 came to mind as another game where any females involved are out of sight for the most part of the game, or even as far as not seen at all.
I generally believe there is a reason for this lack of female presence, at least when it comes to the combat. Both GOW and Quake 4 have serious amounts of gore in them. I can’t vouch entirely for GOW, but suffice to say, I was blasted into meaty chunks on more than one occasion, and this only in a few hours playtime. And Quake 4 likewise has some extremely graphic depictions of dead soldiers, killed and used in all manner of ways.
I hope I’m not stating the obvious here, but it’s my opinion that females are left out of game situations like that to avoid having to depict females in such a nasty situation. And it seems the games industry, maybe just like the real world, seems to have less of a problem with men being sliced and diced, blood guts and brains all over the shop, rather than women.
I myself would have been extremely uncomfortable if the opening scene of Quake 4 featured the corpse of some female soldier blown in half floating through space, instead of a man. Yet I recognize and sympathize with points made on female characters depictions in games, and if games are going to have that kind of balance of male and female characters in games like this, it’s something that has got to be accepted. So perhaps the problem here is the ease of which people will happily see men blown to bits, but find it intensely uncomfortable to see women in the same position. Even I admit that seeing such gory depictions of dead men doesn’t affect me as much as it would women.
Is that a sexist idea though? Would it suggest that a man’s life means less than a woman’s? Or that a woman could not handle that kind of situation? I think to have a good thing like women fighting alongside men as equals in games like Quake and GOW, people like me might have to get over this aversion of seeing the females suffering the same as the males. After all, to keep things the way they are is perhaps unfair, and more importantly, unrealistic.
Sorry, perhaps that is a little long winded to simply say “women appear less in those games because people don’t like seeing them get killed”. Still, its what first comes to my mind if people ask the question of why they don’t appear as often as men do.

By: Brannon

Brannon — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:15:13 +0000

Anya is indeed the only female character in Gears of War, and I was annoyed to see the reactions of the male characters when she’s introduced — shock at the sight of a woman on the battlefield. In addition, when the bullets start flying, Anya hides in the chopper, right beside a door-mounted machinegun, and never even mans the gun to help the soldiers pinned down outside. Throughout the game she feeds information to the male characters who take all the meaningful actions, and she’s “on-camera” for less than 30 seconds. A huge disappointment, but Gears is a macho-macho testosterone-fest so I can’t say I’m surprised. Oh, and final irritation: the enlisted men refer to the male officers by their rank, but call Anya (a Lieutenant) by her first name.

By: Revena

Revena — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 06:57:56 +0000

I just surfed over here from the latest Feminist SF Blog Carnival, and I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed your post. You very clearly outline a lot of the things I’ve been thinking lately about not just women in video games, but women in certain kinds of genre TV shows and movies, as well. Thanks for putting it so well!

By: The Happy Friar

The Happy Friar — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 05:13:40 +0000

the ONLY FPS game that does what you want (that I have played anyway) is Elite Force. Great game (I know, there could be no women on the hazard team, but based on the backstory of voyager, the only woman who could of been on there already was the engineer).
male stripper game figures… I got a big smile on my face when I think of scenes with that. (maybe that’s why DN3D is taking so long!)

By: Cinda

Cinda — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 20:54:41 +0000

are there male stripper game figures? Because I think the world will be complete when we have a shooter that is all women except for one guy who gives them all the clues in a voiceover.