Picture: Daily Mail
I did not grew up playing video games so I decided to ask one of my cousins about the games he plays and he told me about GTA. I did some research about this game and I found interesting information and critiques about this popular game.
Nakaruma mentions “while telecommunications and medical technologies can challenge some gender and racial stereotypes, they can produce and reflect them as well” (p.4). The GTA videogame supports her theory. In this video game the problem is not the absence of women. Yes, there are women characters but the women who appear play secondary characters, prostitutes or strippers. This video-game promotes discriminatory roles and stereotypes towards women. The main character (men) can pay women to have sex with them and then kill them to recover their money. Women are presented as a sexual object with tight clothing, miniskirts and large breasts.
Video games like GTA influence people who play it because they can explore their masculine identity and reinforce beliefs about what men are expected to be, behave, think, feel in society. These types of stereotypes affect both boys and girls negatively.
Schaap mentions “the possibilities for “playing” with gender were accessible to a growing number of people, and the general perception of the researchers seemed to be that this could lead to a shift in the popular understanding of gender, similar to the shift that had occurred in the social sciences” (p. 10). The video game GTA does not have the option to users choose the gender. The game is based on crime, and violence where the main character is always a man. Unfortunately, GTA does not support gender equality in this game. The women character keeps being projected as a secondary one. In spite of the enormous violent and sexist load of the plot, the product has been one of the most successful and with millionaire profits. As I mentioned earlier. I am not a fan of videogames but I am really sure that a game where women are portrayed in the way GTA does I will not play.
Why does sexism persist in the video games industry? is an interesting article from BBC that gives some reasons about the reasons of sexism in videogames
Questions:
- What kind of actions users can take in order to demand a more equal treatment in the role of women in video games?
- What do you think is the main reason why some video games has not incorporate women as main characters or stronger physical qualities?
1. I think the reason these video game are how they are is because it is a form of entertainment/fantasy for many men. For instance many teenagers play GTA because it is a fictional world where they can play a certain character. Changing the role of women in video games can be done by boycotting certain video game franchise.
2. Most likely Because the primary user or player are men for that Game.
If video game companies want to continue making profit they have to give the people what they want. If gamers come together and start demanding more equal treatment in there games then I do believe there will be a change. I believe the main reason why some companies have rarely incorporated women as main characters in there games is because it has been going on for so long. Men have been the main character in video games for years and companies have seen great results from it. Companies are hesitant to change so its going to have too take that one company to make that leap of change.
I believe users can make little to no contribution when most of the programmers that create these characters are predominately man. It is hard to introduce a feminine figure to a market that is compound by man. Unfortunately, man feel the need to portray a masculine and strong character in these games. However, it will be nice for them to know how many users (women) they are loosing by no implementing characters that are seem equal across their game. Maybe if someone begins or develops a sort of surveys to see what’s people reaction of these stereotypes, can help to the improvement of this negative side of online games.