Girl, get your Game on - A quick look at women in games

Last year, when I had Penny for ITB750, we were set an essay on games. We could pick the topic, but it had to fall under one of four categories: demographics, games as art and two others that elude me. I gunned for demographics, particularly the female young-adult. Why? Consider this. I'm one of eleven girls that started this degree. The entire "Class of '07" was 169. Bit of a minority, don't you think?

Anyway, I digress. What really ticked me off was that all women were basically of two types in the game: either stick-figures with voluminous chests who saved the day in high-heels but always curtailling to the dominant male figure or rotund, motherly-types who came across as bossy, nagging old dears with an apron and flour on their arms. Well, I wasn't going to take it. So I wrote a scathing essay on the deliberate misrepresentation of women in games which I felt to be an arcane attempt to keep women from trying to get into the industry. I scored a six for it, mainly because Penny thought that I used outdated texts to reference from. Considering nothing had been written book-wise on this topic for a few years, I was bummed that she thought this. But there were a few things that I brought up in the essay that I thought I should share with the readers of this blog:

1. In 2005, no game in the top five highest-sellers had a central female protagonist

2. The ESA released figures that showed, in the same year, women over eighteen made up a larger portion of game players (Penny will kill me if I ever call them "gamers") than teenage boys.

3. Sales of James Bond games outstrip that of Lara Croft, even though one is an established game franchise and the other is just movie and book tie-ins.

But what I centred on the most was the hyper-sexualisation of women in games. If indeed game companies want to tap into the "tween" age group, they aren't going to win any fans with the parents with the cash if their children are playing as scantily-clad, twenty-something models who don't know the meaning of "cheeseburger and fries".

What I can do is pass on the awesome references I found while researching this assignment:

Action Chicks: new images of tough women in popular culture by Sherrie Inness
Better Game Characters by Design by Katherine Isbister (brilliant and comes with a CD-ROM!)
Girl Heroes: the new force in popular culture by Dr. Susan Hopkins

These books were the backbone for this essay and I really loved their messages. I also looked at the show "Ugly Betty" as a shift in the concept that beauty is skin-deep. I love America Ferrera's portrayal in this show and encourage all those thinking of studying how the media represents women to watch it.

Also, www.mi6.co.uk was very helpful. Couldn't have got the research on Lara and James without 'em.