In video games, women are depicted as the helpless girly-girl persona of Mario’s beloved Princess Peach, or for getting distracted by the big-boobed often-running Lara Croft.
“We tend to make our females look like they’re ready for sex right now,” the BBC quoted Sheri Graner-Ray, studio design director for Schell Games as saying.
Despite the increasing number of women working in the games industry, many people argue that higher representation in gaming - both as players and creators - has done little to change portrayal of women within games.
“Sometimes women don’t get the option of being male or female,” said Ngan Nguyen, editor of Women in Games Jobs as saying.
“You have to play with whatever character you’re given. Some of the games I’ve played, like God of War, you are given just male characters,” she added.
“What you’ve got with online multiple player games is that you have systems like Skype and Vent where you talk to each other whilst you’re on missions together. You discover who it is you’re actually playing with,” she further said.
“An unfortunate truth is that many female gamers register under male (or gender-neutral) identities to avoid stalking, harassment, and the general annoyance of guys who experience neuron failure around characters with breasts,” said Ana Kronschnabl, CEO and co-founder of Bristol-based games company Fluffy Logic.
“The widespread media representation of gaming is as a violent pastime - that games are something for boys and not for girls, and that they lead to anti-social behaviour,” Helen Kennedy, a cultural theorist at the University of the West of England said.
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