The Evolution of Female Gender Roles in Video Games

From ancient mythologies, to modern blockbusters, it’s a trope almost as old as storytelling itself. A man desires a woman, and sets out to save her from a certain danger that she is faced with. The man, portrayed as the hero of the story, is either successful, and is immediately loved by the woman, or he fails miserably. This damsel in distress myth has been retold, time after time, in almost all forms of storytelling. Video games are no exception. This myth is undeniably based on gender stereotypes. The man is heroic, bold, and aggressive, while the female is weak and passive. The man is strong, and able to defeat the enemies that had kidnapped the poor, defenseless woman. However, as storytelling within video games has become more advanced, partially due to the ability to created larger games, these basic stories that are based on stereotypes have been called into question. Now, there is a distinct movement to challenge these stereotypes that they had been perpetuating, by essentially challenging the gender norms themselves.

            Many people are familiar with the stories of early home console games such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, or, more accurately, the lack of story. The player is dropped into the game with no knowledge of the world that they are in, knowing only that there is a princess missing, and it is their job, as the masculine hero, to find them. The primary consumers of this medium, at the time, were boys and men. Due to this, the boys playing the game would see themselves as the masculine protagonist. As they controlled the character, they would feel powerful, and vicariously through their avatar, they would feel like they could save the defenseless princess. They could slay their enemies with ease, feeling wholly masculine. However, this has changed since the eighties. As more females became vocal about their desires for games that catered to their needs, companies began pumping out games that conformed to female stereotypes. These games did not have all of the violence, but instead, took a more peaceful approach to the game play. The appeal was to the stereotypical feminine characteristic of passiveness. Games such as these continued to be made, as the female audience fought back. While men enjoyed being able to see masculinity in the characters that they played as, women were not enjoying the stereotypical femininity that was being thrown at them in their games. The female antagonists were unrealistically feminine, and held very little qualities that women actually wanted to present. This fight back has led us to today, where female protagonists in game are finally being given their due. A good example of this is Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series. Lara Croft has consistently been the epitome of gender stereotypes in video games. While she is portrayed as being intelligent and athletic, most of the emphasis of the design of her character was on her sexuality. Lara has consistently been designed as being an ultra-thin, big breasted, computer generated sex icon. This emphasis on female gender was not working to encourage women to play their games, but instead, to encourage men to play a game where they were able to stare at the backside of this polygonal heroine. Again, the gender stereotypes being portrayed were still quite feminine, but female gamers were still not pleased. Their demands were clear. They did not want to play as a character that was a beacon of femininity. They wanted a character that seemed real. In order to do this, in the latest installment of the Tomb Raider series, Lara Croft was masculinized. Her breast size was reduced to that of a normal looking human. Her muscles were pronounced, as any athletic climber’s would be, and most importantly of all, she was wearing pants. This version of Lara was considerably grittier. She could withstand being cut, stabbed, and essentially impaled, and continue on the quest that was at hand. No longer was she a symbol of female sexuality and feminine gender roles. She now represented a mixture of the feminine traits that she had, and new masculine traits of aggression and independence. This was met with praise from female gamers, but this notion lead to a complication in the ways that masculine and feminine stereotypes were to be portrayed in games.

            While it appeared that most men desired to take control of a character that possessed traits that matched their gender, it would seem that many female gamers did not. While they desired to play as a character that matched their sex, they did not want one who strictly conformed to feminine stereotypes. Thus, it has been determined that most female gamers look for a female protagonist who does not serve as a symbol of their gender, but instead, acts as a realistic character. This discrepancy between male desires for their fantasies, and female desires for their fantasies provides a noticeable complication in the stereotyping of females by feminine traits.