The Mystique of Girl Gamers (Mild Rant)

In my other post, I said I wasn't going to create anymore videogame posts, because of school and other things. However, before even creating a blog dedicated to gamers, especially girl gamers, a guy friend (gamer) suggested that I write about nudity in videogames.

I would be kidding myself if I did not say that the videogame industry, like other industries, is a male dominated industry. However, anyone who claims that girl gamers do not exist and if they do they are posters or unattractive women who happen to be socially akward, paints himself/herself as ignorant. I personally LOVE videogames. I love everything about them. I love the rendering, the rich colors, the deep dialogues, the sexiness of the male characters (Ezio, Ryu Hayabusa) and the feel of the vibration of that green, Halo 3 Edition controller that sits on my bare legs as a breeze through various levels. Playing videogames does not make me less of a woman. It also does not make me more of a woman. I am still intouch with my feminine and intellectual sides. This blog proves such. Most girl gamers in the media are painted as sex symbols, not as women who can seriously contribute to the industry. I think that because girls get to be labeled so easily and placed in one box so often is the reason why women, especially in America do not and cannot express their true selves. We allow society to dictate how a woman should be. We expect women to be these vestal goddesses that express emotion in a child-like manner and yet, we expect women to have composure, be vixens behind closed to doors and we expect women to be faithful and sexually repressed. Which in my opinion, any woman who behaves in this manner is worse than a prostitute or a woman who enjoys men in a physical manner, because this stereotype says that women cannot be free.

The representation of women in videogames shows some of these stereotypes of women, such as youthful faces and exaggerated womanly proportions. This can be seen in Tomb Raider, Ninja Gaiden and Soul Calibur, to name a few games. I like that in BioShock 2, the Big Sisters are drawn in proportion of real sixteen year old girls, not like in Ninja Gaiden II when Ayane makes a cameo appearance before Ryu faces the afterlife. I swear, in that scene, she has the body of Pamela Anderson and the face of Ellen Page. She looked nothing like a 16 year old girl from neck down. It says much about the culture and expectations for women in the 21 century industrialized societies.

The girl gamers that are portrayed on television are not as bad. Morgan Webb on G4TV changed her many looks. She went from having short kool-aid red hair when X-Play was aired on TechTV to having longer hair, dressed in sexier clothing when the show was moved to G4TV. I don't think that there are enough nerdy girls in the world, especially in this country. There aren't many American shows that showcase the full intelligence of a woman. If I could write a show that does, I would. The closest I've come is a science fiction novella that potrays one of the main characters as both feminine and smart.

I'm not saying that I'm not a feminine person. I consider myself to be. As I get older and continue to live on my own, I've been more in touch with my intellectual and feminine sides. I still plan on being a gamer that showcases her quirkiness, but still plan on being a good woman, even if I do need to work on self-composure sometimes. However, even if a woman who loves to play videogames is not "feminine" or she's unatractive or anti-social, so what? I don't see any guy making the effort to actually get to know the girl for who she is and her interests. Maybe there is a guy out there who likes her for who she is. It's so sad that we tend to place standards on women and what makes them attractive. We can't blame videogames, or the media for what men look for in women. We should blame their parents for not raising men to accept all types of beauty and looking to the media and society to dictate their standards.