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.

[i] www.theesa.com/‎

[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?

http://www.lionlamb.org/research_articles/study%202.pdf

[v]Jeanne B. Funk http://www.indiana.edu/~cspc/funk.htm

[vi] http://hp.unifor.br/pdfs_notitia/1585.pdf