One of the blogs that I follow, though I disagree with many of its conclusions, is GeekFeminism. A recent post there pointed me to an article entitled E3 Inspires Woman-Bashing On Twitter. Basically they look at the response to one woman's assertion that at the XBox One launch zero games with female protagonists were demonstrated. What the author of the article later asserted (emphasis mine) was that
A century of scholarship has already made it clear that women are not weaker, less rational, overly emotional, more nurturing, or even hysterical.
At least as far as physical strength goes, the article's assertion seems clearly false at least as far as the extremes go, where video game characters are typically drawn from. e.g. compare the performance of Olympic athletes by gender and also note that high school regional running competitions at least at times show boys there beating the world record for female performance for the same event. In the military's fitness standards, a performance that would net a woman a rating of "superior" would often fall below the "acceptable" threshold if a man performed identically. Beyond that simple issue of raw performance, female athletes appear more prone to injury as well.
That article also highlighted a few other responses:
Worse: “What did you expect? Cooking and cleaning games at console launch reveal?” and “maybe if women were more interesting and capable at life there might be more female led games, like super floral arranger.”
In general I fall into the camp of believing that sex-differences aren't as pronounced as some assert them to be though not entirely non-existent. What does that mean in this case though? I'd argue that where physical strength is key you should expect to find very few, if any women. Thus far no woman has passed US Marine Corp's Infantry Officer course (though, to be honest they haven't been allowed to try for long). The characters in many games like first person shooters should be viewed as taking that small number of people capable of passing such a course and then pruning the list dramatically down again. Duke Nukem no more resembles the typical male than Lara Croft of Tomb Raider resembles the average female. As far as games go that basically seems likely to leave you, excepting token characters or non-human ones, with those types of games that don't require raw physical strength in a character. This might mean that the character:
- does not engage in combat,
- is set back from the action (e.g. a sniper),
- is in control of some sort of machine or creature (e.g. a robot, a car, a dragon),
- has physical confrontation replaced by something else in fighting (e.g. magical spells), or
- uses sex to control others. (This seems to be a typical role for women in real-world espionage though I doubt many, feminist or not, would view a game focusing on such a role positively).
What do you find asserted in an article a few years back by a female gamer?
Something else developers tend to overlook is the fact that a woman's mind differs greatly from a man's. Whereas men generally enjoy the explosive action of a game, women tend to focus more on what is actually happening to the characters. One site's observation is that women respond more to "interpersonal relationships (not necessarily romance, though that's included, but also friends, family, and well-known enemies) than to combat, and are more concerned with character development than most male gamers I've known"
Later on she praises a video game (emphasis mine):
Final Fantasy X, SquareSoft's most recent addition to its series of best-selling games, speaks well to both worlds with its aforementioned central female figure and attention to excitement and action. Typically, role-playing games feature the tough-guy hero and the weak female sorceress who can't do anything but heal. Final Fantasy X, however, breaks that mold. While the male characters still dominate in battle, the female character Yuna is the driving attitude and force behind the actions of the other characters. For example, at one point in the game, Yuna resolves to go after the villain. The main male character doesn't have to go along with it, but her conviction convinces him. This type of character development and plot are what typical girl gamers look for in a game.
This description seems to line up fairly well with the profile of viable female characters outlined above. Female gamers seem to have become a larger and much more visible demographic in that time but have typical interests changed much? Here's a brief excerpt from an article published earlier this month:
Women typically prefer puzzles and social games such as FarmVille, rather than adrenalin-fuelled shoot-’em-ups, according to YouGov research for the tech consultancy LadyGeek.
The short answer seems to be "no". Would you expect that to change a lot were there to be more female characters in shoot-em-ups?
