Does Games Promote Sexism?
A study which was published in the Fronteirs in Psychology journal claims that the more a kid plays on his computer he is more likely to have sexist thoughts. Hence, one might think if games promote sexism? A lot of video games exaggerate the attributes of their character in order to make them more hero like and lovable. As for guy characters, many of them will be tall and muscular. For women, many female characters are downgraded just for their looks. In my opinion, sometimes video games will put a character in a provocative outfit even if doesn’t add anything to the game.
The study featured 13,500 teenagers which play between 1 hour to 10 hours a day. The study examined both males and females and their results were quite surprising. Males who played more were more oriented towards sexist thoughts. While women didn’t seem to become more sexist. Laurent begue, one of the co-authors, says that sexist representations saturate advertising, television and cinema. Video games are no exception.
In an article we have published a few months ago we have checked the gaming patters of males and females. In the article we have showed that women tend to play more of casual games and consist 70% of the genre. Women really don’t play sports games but they are a bigger minority in RPG’s (20%). In my opinion, it’s difficult to determine sexist thoughts based just on games and not on game categories. There is a huge difference between casual gaming and RPG’s. Therefore, maybe woman who play RPG’s have sexist thoughts as well.
The world still has a lot to progress until men and women will feel equal. The entertainment industry has to change a lot in order to not create images that are disturbing for women. However, entertainment as an art form is a reflection of reality. Sexism exists in reality and video game makers are just reflecting what happens.
What are your thoughts? do you think that games promote sexism?
