Violence and Gender Stereotypes in Video Games
by Antonio Gomez
According with Entertainment Software Association ESA[i] in 2007
video games have been the most popular entertainment media in USA For the four-year period 2005
through 2009, direct employment in the
U.S. computer and video game software
publishing industry grew at an annual
rate of 8.65%. Since the beginning of videogames until
today, their primordial function has been the entertainment, however with the
pass of the years but how impact in our
behavior in the society?
Herbert
Marshall McLuhan [ii],
A Canadian philosopher of communication theory believed that the new media
affects the way people think, feel and act.
He considered that “All media are extensions of some human faculty-
psychic or physical.” In the book understanding video games: the essential
Introduction the author think similar to Mcluhan they say "
Games are popular art, collective, social reactions to the main drive or action
of any culture. Macluhan say "Anyone who tries to make a distinction
between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either
". Games, like institutions, are extensions of social man and of the body
politic, as technologies are extensions of the animal organism. Both games and
technologies are counter-irritants or ways of adjusting to the stress of the
specialized actions that occur in any social group. As extensions of the
popular response to the workaday stress, games become faithful models of a
culture. They incorporate both the action and the reaction of whole populations
in a single dynamic image"[iii]
Is many
social problem relative with the video games in this article I'll focus just in
two violence and Gender Stereotypes in Video Games Sexism in games
Violence in video games
Dr Craig Anderson [iv],
professor in the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University has studied
and testified about the effects of video game violence for many years: He and
his colleagues have come to the following conclusions.
• One consequence of exposure
to media violence is increasing aggressive both short and long term behavior.
• Another consequence of
exposure to media violence is the appearance of a higher heart rate and greater
intensity in sensory activity, both associated with dominant modes of behavior
• People learn new ways of
doing violence and is very likely to implement as soon as you see in a similar
situation reflected in video games.
• Compulsive Gamers become desensitized to aggression and
violence.
Dr Jeanne B. Funk, Professor
and Director of the Doctoral Program Clinic at the University of Toledo (USA)
Psychology, published a study in the "Journal of Adolescent" in which
he concluded that both the violence shown by the media as reflected in the
video games were related to a resurgence of violent attitudes, but that empathy with the victim was lower in
gamers. Dr Funk ventured that this was due to video game players participated
in them as instigators of violence and were not mere passive spectators, and
other media.
Researchers from the University
of Toledo (USA) concluded that video game violence affects children that
violence of the films due to the interactive nature of the experience with
those [v]
Accord with Enrique Javier
Gutierrez a professor in Leon University
in Spain in the article Sexual difference in videogames analysis developing in
2003 to 2004 [vi]
. They analyze 255 deferens video games the most selling at that moment where they say in the 93 % of the video games
analyzed exist the competition and in
73% war, kill or attack the actions predominant in this games are:
will is all 98 %
Vengeance over the justice (in 30%)
Brute force to achieve goals (in 81%)
Violence as a strategy (in 84%)
Stereotypical
roles of women (98%)
Exaltation of the hardness of
man and beauty of women (98%) or
the others enemies (in 83%)
A study of the Faculty of
Medicine at Stanford University concluded that if you reduce the time spent on
television and video games to less than an hour a day, then verbal abuse down
by 50% and physical in 40% among children in the third and fourth grades.
" An intervention to
reduce television, videotape, and video game use
decreases aggressive behavior in elementary schoolchildren. These findings
support the causal influences of these media on aggression and the potential
benefits of reducing children's media use.
VIOLENCE IS
pervasive in television, movies, and video games. Children's television
programming contains even more violence than prime-time programming; it has been estimated that by the age of 18 years,
US children witness 200 000 acts of violence on television alone"[vii]
According to a study conducted
in March 2005 by the Kaiser Family Foundation [viii], and
video games are so naturalized in the home such as television. Moreover there
is increasing consoles in bedrooms, where surveillance is less:
• 83% of young people own a
game console at home, and 65% have two or more
• About half of young people
surveyed have a game console in their room.
• 55% have a portable mini-game
console (gameboy PSP ).
• Just over 20% of young people
recognized that their parents monitored the use of video games.
In a
personal case I would make a side comment I am big fan of video games and I
completely agree with everything researched however I am in favor of some form of violence to a certain extent in
video games, so investigate a little more and found a very interesting article
that was published only a few months ago published Online 25 March 2013[ix] the
study conducted at the University of
Glasgow (United Kingdom) dissociates videogames and behavioral problems in
children. The study was conducted with some 11,000 children and concludes that
there is no link between the use of video games on children and behavior
problems in later development.
The study,
whose results were published in the article " Do TV and electronic games
predict children's psychosocial adjustment ? [x] " in the journal Archives of Disease
in Childhood , was based on asking parents to observe the habits of using video
games for their children and then report any kind of problem . Other habits
were also measured as time watching television.
The study
concludes that video games do not influence emotional , behavioral or
attention. But see 3 or more hours of television per day at age 5 yes to a
slight increase in behavior problems in the period of 5-7 years linked .
In any
case, no TV or video games are linked to emotional or attention problems and
has detected no difference between boys and girls .
Although
the study is based on data collected by parents , the data sample is large
enough - 11 000 children assessed , as noted in the study, to compensate the
error margins resulting from possible inaccuracies in parental observations.
In America
in recent times many cases appear about teen agers killers, It is not known with certainty what
the cause, and it is clear that one can not attribute responsibility for these
attacks exclusively to the game industry. However,
it is clear that there is no denying the connection between these murders and
videogames with the murderers spent hours playing. this is just an exmaple of
it
the April
19, 1999, a Columbine (Colorado), Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed
institute fifteen, twenty wounded and then committed suicide. Harris announced
on his website on 19 April that would make "DOOM come true "
("DOOM" is the name of the game). In addition, Harris called a
shotgun "Arlene," which is the name of one of the characters in the
game DOOM. Finally, Harris designed his game in an atmosphere of deadly
scenario that is perfectly suited to the characteristics of the Columbine High
School before the shooting.
In West
Paducah (Kentucky), Michael Carneal, who was 14, shot and killed three
students, injuring five others. It was an addict of DOOM, QUAKE and FINAL
FANTASY video games, which are all games that recreate in violence. Michael
Breen, a prosecutor in the case against Carneal, testified at the trial:
"Michael Carneal shot nine shots in ten seconds. Of the nine, eight hit
the target. Three hit on the heads and necks of the victims and were lethal.
That aiming far exceeds that required by the army sharpshooters. This guy had
never fired a gun in his life, but because of his obsession with video games had
become a accurate shooter. "[xi]
Gender
Stereotypes in Video Games
Another theme within the literature on the gaming
subculture is how the gaming industry has created female characters that are
merely for male players. Perhaps the most blatant and long-standing example of
this is the female heroine of the Tomb Raider. Lara croft is in no t to many
words a Female Indiana Jones just with less cloths and is incredibly busty and tom
rider is not the only example of clothing is a indicator of discrimination in
the video games According with Beasley
and Standley explore gender bias while specifically looking at clothing in
their article "Shirts vs. Skins: Clothing as an Indicator of Gender Role
Stereotyping in Video Games.” Beasley and Standley used content analysis to
examine the portrayal of women in forty-seven randomly selected video games in
which they found that of 597 characters coded, only 82 (13.74%) were women and
the majority of those female characters wore clothing that exposed far more
skin than their male character counterparts.
The most recent example was just few mont ago when Hideo Kojima who is a He is the creator, director and writer of a number of
successful video games, including the Metal Gear series [xii]
in the last E3 (Electronic game show) kojima say he’s been working
on making characters more “erotic” for the new Metal Gear as a means of inspiring cosplayers and to also boost figurine
sales, though he later
clarified, saying “sexy” is a better word for what he’s trying to do. after
that he show a new trailer of metal gear solid V where we can see a new female
character a "Quiet" she is a sniper the problem is is the typical
stereotype of slim beautiful woman with big breasts she is although part of the
army only wearing a bikini a ripped tights and a sniper rifle and she is dumb.
Although
violent content of video games often offer negative views of many constituent
elements of society, the treatment of women is particularly regrettable.
• 86% of
African American women that appear in the games are victims of violence.
• In those games the women are mostly seen
as prostitutes. Jeanne
As for the image and role of women, women's representation in
video games is lower maybe (15% vs. 65%), generally undervalued, and dominated
and passive attitudes. His body models are designed to exaggeration (90%) with
idealizations taken comic movie characters . Their clothing not respond to
current needs, history, work or action performed in the game, but rather to
show "suggestive" or "seductive" to men This is a strong
impact on the image that girls and adolescents are built for themselves and
contributing especially to children and young people take behavioral patterns
regarding women made from a stereotyped and limited view of the feminine.
With this type of video game girls learn dependence and man domination.
[ii]
The Medium is The Message, Marshall McLuhan.
[iii] understanding video games: the essential Introduction
[iv] Craig Anderson. Violence exposure
in real-life, video games, television, movies, and the internet: is there
desensitization?
