“Are girls put off or discouraged from video gaming by gender representations and expectations?”
I have studied this question with a view to discovering possible reasons why females are less likely to game, the implications of their disassociation, and possible solutions. I wanted to see if girls feel oppressed by gaming stereotypes, and to assess the damage caused to their chances with technology. I wished to discover why gaming is a boy’s only culture, and to see how the female gamers overcome this. I wanted to find out if more girls would play games if given more appropriate characters and game styles.
Video games for females currently amount to little more than franchise products for young girls. Gaming seems to be the domain of young males and young adult males, who seek to, and are provided with the means to refute femininity and establish their own heterosexual masculinity through game play.
The future of videogames has a large growth possibility, and potential to infiltrate many more peoples’ lives. If games characters, plots, and styles can mature to embrace new cultural influences beyond Manga and comic book art, or action and sci-fi movies, it will begin to loose its selective ‘geek’ appeal. If softcore representations of females can be reduced to a minority, instead of a pervasive majority, and instead we can see characters of both genders developing stylistically, and in mannerisms, to create aesthetic characters one wishes to play, then games may have a better future. Males and females alike will be able to share in new un-gendered technology, and the current imbalance between males and females in computing roles (a logical progression from the fascination with gaming) could be rectified.