Fair Play: Gender

This section of Fair Play describes the male species as superior, and even proves that non-human characters are more popular in video games than women. The majority of the times women are just bystanders, and often are portrayed extremely voluptuous, in ways that are not realistic. In addition, to taking a very stereotypical view of what a women is and should be. For instance, being a size 0 and dressing like hookers and wearing pink at all times. Realistically most females are not a size 0, or hookers, nor do we all like pink. So this says a lot about society and how women are essentially still looked down upon in 2009.

The problem with this is that teenage boys will see this in, not only video games but in all media, and think that all girls have to look a certain way. For teenage girls, it makes them think they all have to be anorexic looking instead of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Also, by the portrayal of raunchy women, games are targeting males, and not women. This brings about issues to the gaming industry as well, because guys are not the only ones interested in video games, and there are almost no games for young women.

An example of women inferiority is Princess Peach in the game Paper Super Mario. Here the Princess is only able to glide through sky, while Mario can flip through dimensions, Luigi has a super jump, and Bowser can breathe fire; which the men and the non human have powers to ultimately destroy enemies, while the Princess isn’t capable of doing so. The most she can do is stomp on the enemy, but in that way her character can die quicker, so you wouldn’t really use her in a fight. This just goes to show the stereotypical view, that women can defend themselves against an enemy, without the help of a “stronger” figure.