blargh AIM went down so just posting this here for the people who are helping me with my ethos/logos/pathos argument construction. Just scroll past this.
Despite claims that sexism is gone from our society, it is widely known that video games and the industry that creates them are sexist. Critics have called it a “boy’s club,” an apt nickname given the image it invokes of a group of elementary school children making a fort and hanging a sign on the entrance that reads NO GIRLS ALLOWED. This is certainly not the case now: video games have become much more mainstream. Their appeal to not just both sexes but to all ages is widely recognized. But like cinema during its fledgling years, video games run the gamut from covert unintentionally sexist tropes to overt chauvinism. From powering through platform levels as Mario to rescue the helpless, distressed damsel Princess Peach to the flagrant, in-your-face jiggle physics of Dead or Alive, the video game industry’s treatment of women as a gender and a sex is problematic, to say the least.
Of course, that is not to say it’s all bad. Lara Croft and Samus Aran may have pretty idealized physiques, but that does nothing to stop them from being fully capable characters in their own rights. And men don’t get a much better deal, often being portrayed as overly aggressive and even more overly muscular, though men’s roles are at least more varied and usually more fleshed out. The industry has made attempts to cater to a more diverse market in recent years, largely because of the recent and rapid growth in the market’s diversity. But those attempts resort to the age-old question companies have been asking about us for centuries: what do we mysterious females like? The industry’s answer to this question is a whole slew of “girl games,” which boil down to clothes, shopping, boyfriends, puppies, music, and the occasional puzzle.
Women developers are still in the minority; the target audience of blockbuster games is still men, and those games pander to the stereotypical notions about gender that developers believe still hold strong in that base. Women who play blockbuster games like Call of Duty and Gears of War online often have to develop stronger gameplay skills than many men, or else hide their gender entirely and pretend to be men themselves for fear of drawing targets on their own backs. Machismo permeates the subculture as a whole; gender equality is the exception, not the rule.
Of course, that is not to say it’s all bad. Lara Croft and Samus Aran may have pretty idealized physiques, but that does nothing to stop them from being fully capable characters in their own rights. And men don’t get a much better deal, often being portrayed as overly aggressive and even more overly muscular, though men’s roles are at least more varied and usually more fleshed out. The industry has made attempts to cater to a more diverse market in recent years, largely because of the recent and rapid growth in the market’s diversity. But those attempts resort to the age-old question companies have been asking about us for centuries: what do we mysterious females like? The industry’s answer to this question is a whole slew of “girl games,” which boil down to clothes, shopping, boyfriends, puppies, music, and the occasional puzzle.
Women developers are still in the minority; the target audience of blockbuster games is still men, and those games pander to the stereotypical notions about gender that developers believe still hold strong in that base. Women who play blockbuster games like Call of Duty and Gears of War online often have to develop stronger gameplay skills than many men, or else hide their gender entirely and pretend to be men themselves for fear of drawing targets on their own backs. Machismo permeates the subculture as a whole; gender equality is the exception, not the rule.
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