Gender in Video Games

I watched all the videos, and they all made great points on how societal pressures are affecting what men and women are allowed to do or be within our cultural confines. Even during class, there were a few great discussions about how female characters are always portrayed as overly sexualized or in need of protection and guidance.

However, the whole time, I was focusing more on the male side. Maybe that's something society has imbedded in me; I'm not the man, so my views and beliefs are shaping these stereotypes. I digress. What I was thinking about, though, was the fact that video games and media in general are shaping societies views of what it means to be a "man." I feel like the "Tough Guise" video got it dead on. Men aren't allowed to be submissive, weak, emotional, vulnerable, or anything, because then they have feminine traits and qualities, so they can't be "real" men.

Video games aren't necessarily doing anything to help this flow of belief either. There's games like God of War, where Kratos, the protagonist, I'm using that label loosely, is hyper masculine. He's strong, violent, shows a lack of emotion (except for anger), and he gets things done. He knows what he wants and he takes it. All very stereotypical masculine traits. Take a game like World of Warcraft; all the male characters have some form of muscle definition. Even if you choose a class such as a mage, your human avatar will still be in great shape. Seems weird. Just saying.

Gender is games is following the predetermined road map set about society when it comes to handling gender. It's sad to say, but it's true. However, even then, it's a tight rope to walk. When a game offers both male and female characters to play, the characters tend to have the same personality type and traits, the only real difference lying in romantic interests. Now, maybe this blanket mechanic of character decision is helping to phase out gender, by having male and female characters adopting identical traits, or maybe it's just a safety net. Maybe game designers are so afraid of taking a chance in terms of gender traits and roles that they'd rather have a character defined by sex rather than personality. Now, those two things seem to get confused a lot, but gender and sex are completely different, just as the Extra Credit video pointed out. Sex deals with the biological makeup of a person. Gender deals with the human psyche, and it generally has to do with internal and psychological traits that are connected with masculinity and femininity. I can't say video games are handling the latter correctly, but I can't necessarily say that there is a correct or acceptable way to handle this subject yet either. I don't think society necessarily knows what it means to be masculine or feminine, especially when I can look at other cultures and watch the makeup of these two categories change. So, is it fair to criticize games and game developers in their handling of gender? Sure. I don't think that the only traits that make up a woman are her breasts and her need for protection. Not by any means, my mom made sure I knew that women could be strong, independent, and decisive while at the same time being caring, nurturing, and sympathetic. My dad has all of these same traits. So where my real struggle comes in is fully placing the blame on society and video games. We can sit on a high horse and say that games and media are just perpetuating stereotypes. But aren't we shopping at the same store? By saying that a male avatar should be able to be sympathetic and vulnerable, are we now saying that masculinity can be defined by a certain softness? And if we say that women should be portrayed as being more driven and having more strength, aren't we trying to change the definition of femininity to that of masculinity? I don't think there will ever be a video game that perfectly portrays gender and attributes, but that's because I don't think there's a set standard for what that definition is.