Characteristics of Popular Female VideoGame Characters, Part 1

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Yuri Sakazaki

              Last week, I emphasized on one of the most iconic female characters in the realm of videogames: Lara Croft. This week, I intend to take it a step further by analyzing characteristics of other famous female characters within popular videogames. As stated in previous blogs concerning this topic, women have not been portrayed as equally to men in past games. In 1998, researcher Tracy L. Dietz examined thirty-three games on the Nintendo and Sega Genesis game consoles. Thirty-one percent of the games did not have a female character. When there was a female character, she was shown in a submissive position. Merely 15 percent of the female characters attained hero statuses; the others were princesses or wise older women. Throughout this blog, I will give examples of female characters that have attributed to this gender role stereotype.

              In 2002, Berrin Beasley and Tracy Collins Standley did a study on clothing as an indicator of gender role stereotyping in video games. They randomly picked games from Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation. All of the characters (human, animal or object in a video game which displayed human-like characteristics) were coded based on their gender and their clothing. Clothing was further divided by sleeve length, neckline, lower body attire (which was later removed because the findings were not significant), and cleavage. From the forty-seven games, five hundred ninety-seven characters were coded.

Claire Redfield fights zombies with a very low neckline.

            The results were intriguing. Of all the characters analyzed, 427 were men, 82 were women, and 88 were of an indeterminable gender. This means that most of the characters portrayed in video games are male. Around fifty percent of the world is female, yet only a fourth of the video games included females (Beasley and Standley, 289). Under-representation of females shows how males are privileged in games. It was also strange that there were more aliens or creatures represented than females, which can lead one to believe females are less important than non-existent creatures.

Even a cute, cartoon character like Amy can be sexualized.

            In sleeve length, nearly half of the females were shown without sleeves; most were wearing halter and tank tops or bathing suits. This proved that women are shown with fewer clothes than men in video games. Of the 28 characters with a low neckline, 24 were female. Of the 71 female characters with visible cleavage, 29 (41%) were considered voluptuous (having large or overly large breasts). Furthermore, 31 percent of the characters with voluptuous breasts were in games rated E for everyone. This means that little kids play games with suggestive characters. Thus, the majority of the female characters are dressed in such a way as to bring attention to their bodies (Beasley and Standley 269). Bringing attention to the bodies of females shows the stereotypes of what women "should be."

            Next week, I plan to expand on studies of this nature by using examples of specific videogames.