Video Games an Gender Roles

A topic that had actually crossed my mind several times before today is the sexaulity of video game characters. Men and women seem to be ultra sexed up.

Looking at the females in video games it is very interesting to analyze the conflicting roles they play. Women are visually very sexy, with revealing clothing and bodies that are completely unrealistic (like Kevin said; 36, 12, 15 as their body measurements). At the same time women play very violent roles in many instances and are frequently just as harmful and violent as the male characters. This creates a strong contrast between femininity and masculinity combining into one. The way people feel about this will vary of course. Some women may say that its great females are so tough and still sexy, others may say it is completely unrealistic and filling our societies head with false perceptions.

Personally, I had to really think hard to decide where I stand. I like that women have the ability to be just as tough as men because that is breaking down the weak helpless female barrier. At the same time I do not like the sexy outfits the women are wearing because that is just lending to the sex symbol stereotype of women. So I came to the conclusion that if women were to be slightly more clothed, I would not really have any second thoughts about how they are portrayed in the gaming world.

Here is another blog I found tha had some interesting insight about women in video games from someone who works at a vido game store... http://www.helium.com/items/233252-role-models-or-eye-candy-the-portrayal-of-female-video-game-characters.

On the opposite side of the spectrum are males in video games. The males are portrayed as super macho with sculpted bodies. The macho part doesn’t bother me, guys always try to be super macho men so that’s just that in my eyes. Personally I am not perturbed by their bodies on the games, not because I look at them and think dang they are fine, I just know that very few (if any) men look like that and as a personal preference, I’d rather not date someone who looked like that.

Intersting tidbit... I googled male portrayal in video games and it said "did you mean female portrayal in video games?"... I found that interesting and wonder why that is?

I don’t feel that by showing men super buff it creates a sexual stigma in the mind, but for some reason when I see women dressed skimpy it evokes sexual connotations that slightly bother me. I am not sure if this is a cultural thing or a personal thing, but I do feel that it couldn’t hurt for women to have a bit more clothing on in video games and it wouldn’t do any harm covering the men up as well.

1.5.20. Life.

It seems logical to begin with my one year goal, so I will begin withwhere I will be in one year.

June 2010: I will be a college graduate with a BA in journalism. I will be working as a reporter for either an Oklahoma City station or a Tulsa news station. I'll be headed to graduate school to obtain an MBA and JD concurrently. I will be working within my church with children by teaching Sunday school. I will not be married, engaged or have any children yet... Stay tuned for the next chapter where this is more realistic.

June 2015: I will be 25 and a full time news anchor. I will be engaged and possibly newly married. I do not foresee any children at this point in my life, which will come in a few more years. I hope to have enough money so that I am comfortable in my living style, but do not lose sight of the little things in life. At this point in my life I hope to be a leader within my church, working with the children’s ministry and leading worship. The man that I marry will be right there by my side and helping me with the children of the church as well as the youth, making an impact on their life while they are young and we are young.

June 2030: Whew… that sounds far away doesn’t it? At the age of 40 I will be happily married to my best friend raising a beautiful family. I will have two children (hopefully a boy and a girl, in no particular order) and they will be roughly close to the age of 10. I will be an active part of my children’s life and refuse to let me career get in the way as my parents careers did. I will be their soccer coach, basketball coach, and coach of whatever sport they desire to play. If they wish to pursue music I will take them to all their lessons, if they wish to dance or sing or act I will fully support them in all the things they try and refuse to miss this aspect of their life. I will be an active part of the school education system (most likely meaning on the school board) and will strive to make it the best possible. I will be working as a full time news anchor for the morning show so that I work from 3am-1pm, allowing me to be there for my children after school and allowing me to do all the housekeeping required as a good mother and wife. As an anchor I do not wish to take it to a national level. I do not want my life or my family’s life to be in the spot light of the world. I feel that by working at a station in a moderate sized city I will be able to establish a name for myself as well as security in terms of my job. I will be very financially secure between both me and my husband’s jobs we will have no fiscal stresses. We will both be leaders of the church together. I would love to serve as a mentor to new mothers and newlyweds as well as continue in leading worship. I would like to start a children’s choir where the children play their own music and sing all on their own. I want them to be the voice of creativity and use their talents to serve God. I will be happy.

Hispanic Portralyal in the Media

Hispanics are clearly represented in a negative light by the media. Where the problem lies is where should the line be drawn on how to report on America’s largest minority?
It is true that immigration is an issue in the U.S. that seems to draw negative attention and Hispanics are more often than not are the first group which comes to mind in regards to this topic. This does not seem like an issue which can be blamed on the media, I think it is a natural American stereotype to jump to this conclusion. In all reality it is known that we have secure shores and the Canadians don’t seem to be jumping on over into America. This leaves only one group to point to in term if illegal immigration. In this situation, I feel politicians may be to blame. They seem to be the ones using the Hispanics as their example of illegal immigrants.
At the same time Hispanics are represented as criminals by the media, a situation which can clearly be pointed at the media. This seems like a problem without a very simple answer. Coming from California I can vouch that Hispanics are shown in mug shots on the news daily. Growing up with them in this negative light has caused me to have a much more skewed vision of Hispanics as I discovered today.
How can it be stopped that Hispanics are the ones being shown as criminals by the media?
It can be argued that the media pick and choose the stories which they choose to cover, but I can vouch for the local level saying that they cover the stories which contain the largest wow factor or they will cover any crime story if it is a light day in the news (nationally, I don’t have room to speak, but it seems they too will choose the WOW factor stories).
There is no doubt that this negative light is being shed, particularly on the subject of crime, but I think the only way this can be changed is if the media simply stops covering stories about Hispanics committing crimes (this is not something which can just be stopped, that would be ridiculous). Taking an approach to cover the amount of stories that represent the population being served sounds like the complete opposite of what the Medias purpose is. For instance if there is a city with a 25% Hispanic population does that mean that there should be 25% of the coverage on Hispanics? Most certainly not!
I think delivering the news in this fashion defeats the purpose of serving as a watchdog and helping the greater good of the people.
What is the answer then? Perhaps the media is simply covering the stories which happen in the news and if Hispanics are the ones committing the crimes, then they will be the ones showed on the television.
Hispanics account for 40% of all crimes committed. It seems as though the numbers speak for themselves. An article written by the New York Times in February of this year shows the break down of numbers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/us/19immig.html

Sterotypes/ Free Expression

Sterotypes. There is so much to be said about sterotypes.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, tan skin and a good body…
What comes to mind when hearing this?
Barbie? Jessica Simpson?
When thinking of this stereotype many people probably automatically assume, stupid!
Of course there reasons for why people feel this way (thank you Jessica Simpson for asking why buffalo have wings). Then there are those who meet all of these qualities and still have a brain (crazy idea right? Blonde with a Brain!).
When looking closely it does seem that the media is at blame for many of these conceptions. Sticking with the dumb blonde stereotype, there are numerous characters played on television who contribute to this. AS mentioned already, Jessica Simpson seems to nail this right on the head in her reality TV show “Newly Weds”, Paris Hilton is another TV personality we can kindly thank for helping the blonde beauties of this world appear dumb .
There are stereotypes with much more substance (no pun intended) than the blonde example of course, it is just an easy example to look at in the media.
These stereotypes do stem from deeper rooted things in society in the whole world.
When thinking about it, I asked myself are stereotypes really that bad of a thing?
I really cannot answer that. I know I have never been a fan of being stereotyped no matter what type of stereotyping it was. I was the “principles daughter” in middle and elementary school (that was a blast...NOT!). This particular stereotype I don’t really feel can be faulted on the media; I think it was more of a society based thing. As the principles child you are expected to get the best grades, you are expected to win everything, but at the same time when you do find success in the things you are expected to succeed in the only reason you were able to accomplish these things was because my mom was the principle of course.
Going to back to whether stereotypes are a bad thing, I really don’t think that they are that terrible. What is it about them that are so detrimental to the world?

Gender

Why can’t girls play football according to the American standards?
Why can’t men be male cheerleaders in a typical Americans eyes?
What is it about our culture that expects us to conform to certain gender stereotypes?
Growing up and even to this day, I have never had a problem being a girl. I have never had a problem doing ballet or other feminine type things. In general I enjoy doing the things I am expected to do as a girl.
What does push some buttons for me is the lack of respect for the female in the work place. Of course the number of women holding more respectable jobs is up significantly these days (which can be tribute to the fact that there are a lot more women who go to college these days than there are men), the amount of pay in contrast to men holding identical positions of women is still unbalanced. Men are still higher paid. In different companies defense they often claim that the women is going to have to take time off for maternity leave or to take care of children. This may be true, but why should the female be punished with lower pay because Mother Nature blessed her with the ability to give birth? It seems like a cheap excuse to me.
In all these standards set for the different genders to abide by are fairly harmless, but what does seem unfair is the professional setting in which gender difference does play a role.

What is Privilege?

When taking some time to really think about it, I began wondering what is privilege?

I came up with several different ideas of privilege, but I narrowed it down to fit into different categories of life. Everyone has privileges over other people and everyone is less privileged than others in certain aspects of life.

It seems to me that everyone, no matter race, gender or anything else, feels that others hold privilege over them at times. Many people take it personally that people have certain privileges over them. Of course, there are times where it cannot be helped what kind of privilege you hold as an individual. The times we are helpless are probably the times that as individuals, we get most frustrated.

As a female who wishes to go into the world of sports broadcasting, I have already discovered that men hold privilege over me. This does not mean that men have a better opinion, but in general, my opinion won’t even be listened to when it comes to sports. I applied to be a sports reporter for the Daily my freshmen year and I received an email thanking me for my interest and then saying there are no sports positions we could find for you to fill, but to try talking to the Arts and Entertainment editor. I took extreme offense to this! Arts and Entertainment, why because I am a blonde girl from California? Does that mean that I don’t know about sports? Little did the editor know, I have done nothing but sports my entire life, I am my Daddy’s little boy who constantly gets into debates with boys about different sporting topics. In the world of sports males most certainly hold an automatic privilege.

There are also times that females have privileges over men. Just like there are times when certain races have privileges over other races.

Is there something we can do to change the privileges of the world?

To me there is an extent to which things can be changed, but at the same time, I do not foresee a day when people are going to go to women for sports advice, simply because in general women are not obsessed with sports like men are.

The idea of privilege can also be tied to financial situations. Financial privilege is something that can be changed, especially in the United States. This day in age there is no reason a normal person cannot go to college, there is so much financial help available, if education holds enough importance than anyone can make it happen.

Overall privileges exist all around us, everyone has some.

Personal Reflection

Race in the media is something we don’t pay attention to enough. The media seems to create a number of stereotypes about all races. My ideas of race seem to have subconsciously been shaped by the media. When thinking about some of the most common stereotypes, they all have to do with race. I know that I was not raised in a family that held any sort of racial grudges, yet when someone says something a man with the name Jose, I automatically place that person in a certain category. This actually happened to me a few weeks ago, I was in London at the famous Abby Road and I heard one of my friends say she just met two guys from Mexico City, one named Jose the other Pedro. In my head I immediately drew the conclusion that these people had brown skin, brown eyes and were probably not very well off. When I turned around to meet them, they both had blonde hair and blue eyes dressed to the nine in designer clothing. Another one of my friend was thinking the same thing I was and said there is no way you guys are from Mexico City, you don’t look Mexican. This is such an appalling situation to look back at. We sound so ignorant with these stereotypes, yet when any one is asked to describe what they see in their head when they hear the name Jose, I can almost guarantee they will come up with a description similar to what popped into my head. I truly believe that this subconscious stereotyping can be thanked due in part to the media. It is impossible for every single individual cross culturally to be taught in the home these types of racial associations. When examining the media, it can be seen how the simplest of racial associations become prominent. For instance on Greys Anatomy, the hit TV show, the Asian women on there has the last name Yang and frequently brags on her academic success, yet is constantly floundered in her social failure. This is very similar to the connotations many people make in their head about Asians today. Overall the media is not very sensitive in most situations to racial situations.