In the study of about 1,400 US youths, 47% of middle-school boys and 61% of high school boys agreed that women are treated as sex objects too often in games.
This article contains a study by Rosalind Wiseman and Ashly Burch that shows youth are impacted by the overly sexual portrayals of women in video games.
“Video games portray women poorly” – Similarly, 40% of Americans say they are not sure whether video games portray women poorly. Another 18% say this is not true for most games, while 14% say this is true for most games. More than a quarter of all adults (27%) say this is true for some video games but not others. Notably, the responses to this question show no differences by gender. Young adults are split on the portrayal of women – 24% each of those 18 to 29 think most video games do and do not portray women poorly.
This model shows the growing concern with the lack of understanding of morality within video game culture. The skewed reaction from the population tested is evidence that the culture has reached a psychological evolution in changing values.
Damsels in distressOf course, the issue of gender ratios in video games is not a new one - but it did seem to be on more observers' minds at E3 this year, with observers tweeting about a lack of female characters in Sony's presentation and videogame site Polygon publishing an article titled "There were more severed heads than women presenters at E3 2014".Studies have consistently shown that at least since the 1990s, the percentage of female characters in video games has remained steady at around 15%."It's amazing how little has changed," says University of Pennsylvania professor, Yasmin Kafai, the co-editor of one of the seminal books on gender in videogames, Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat, published in 2008.
The notion of the damsel in distress is a common theme among video game developers. Designing a character specifically to be a sex symbol was the main concern at this year's E3. Which poses the question, "are women's rights truly protected in the digital realm?"
Sexism in video gaming is prejudiced behavior or discrimination based on sex or gender as experienced by people who play and create video games, primarily women. This may manifest as sexual harassment or in the way genders are represented in games, such as when characters are presented according to gender-related tropes and stereotypes. The demographics of video game culture have changed since the 1980s and 90s, when video games were perceived as something of interest mainly to young men. Women make up about half of all game players as of the 2010s.[1] This change, as well as publicized incidents of harassment such as the Gamergate controversy in 2014, have contributed to industry professionals and media increasingly paying attention to issues related to sexism in video gaming.
This definition aptly supplies context to our findings and is an example of the psychological trends in the digital era.
Gender is not a topic unfamiliar to the world of gaming. According to the International Game Developers Association (2005), 88.5% of game developers are male and 92% of developers are heterosexual. Also, both female and LGBTQgame developers held stronger opinions that the game industry lacks diversity and that diversity has a direct impact on the games produced. Thus, the viewpoint from which the majority of games are developed is o ne t ha t is held by a largely homogenous contingent of game developers. With such an overwhelmingly large percentageof heterosexual malesas game developers, it is no surprise that portrayals and perceptions of gender in video games are skewed.Supporting this claim,gender ideology among men, specif ic a ll y highly masculine-identified men,ha s been shown to be strongly tied withsexual orientation—to be a man is to be heterosexual, to be gay is to breach a man’s masculinity, and to question a man’s masculinity is to question his sexuality(Pascoe, 2007; Parrott, 2008; Herek, 1986; Kimmell, 1997). With reference back to the two theories of media consumption, having such a sizeable proportion of game developers as heterosexual men can help to explain why female and LGBTQ game developers felt that diversity of developers translates directly into diversity of the games produced. Homogenization of gender and sexuality
This paragraph pertains to the inequality of the environments and gender bias used in the gaming community.
Research shows that compared to girls, boys in the U.S. are more likely to be diagnosed with a behavior disorder, prescribed stimulant medications, fail out of school, binge drink, commit a violent crime, and/or take their own lives.
This study shows correlation to the way in which males are reared and the rate of mental disorders which lead to sexism in youth.
By now you’ve likely heard of GamerGate, a clutch of internet users whose primary occupation is harassing feminist activists in games and tech and keening about how “SJWs” (social justice warriors) are ruining their favorite media. Last year, in response to an editorial I wrote that was critical of video game culture’s inherent sexism, they swarmed Intel with “consumer complaints” until it pulled advertisements from the site that published it (the chastened tech giant has since committed a generous $300 million to diversity initiatives). The same loosely organized “community” has hounded women from their homes and attempted to silence their talks with threats of mass violence.
This article describes Gamer Gate, a collective of users that harass and intimidate tech companies to defund activist ventures that fight to make the digital world a more tolerable and equal environment.