The Sexism in The Gaming Industries 

Playing video games is a fun way to interact with friends or even make new ones. Often men and women will not get along because of the common stereotypes in our society. Today many men like to claim that they are at a higher power than women, these things are not true and can be very offending to some people. This is why today we are trying to eliminate many of these stereotypes to have a more friendly video game environment.

First and foremost the percentages of male to female gamers has always been vastly different. According to Kim Gittleson at BBC News today only about 48% of online gamers are female, and very few of them play competitively. Both genders can be equally as good as one another in competitive circumstances, it just depends on how long they have been playing. It can also depend on if they have ever played anything like it before.

In addition to this people are often judged by their rank and skill level rather than their personality. Frequently females are assumed to be a bad player if their rank is lower than others. This is another stereotype that is incorrect because all player start off at the same rank, but some players have worked their way up higher than others, so their rank is better. Even out of all the professional competitive players only 1% of them are female.

Another problem in our society today is people being harassed, this is one of the most underestimated topics when it comes to sexism in gaming. In addition to this many women in the gaming industries have to face the day-to-day challenge of being threatened with yelling, murder, and much worse. Other players will resort to yelling if a female does not do the correct thing when playing, even if the player is doing everything correctly there is still some unnecessary judgment involved.

On the other hand the game designers themselves can be sexist. This is because many people have begun to notice that the female body shapes are all the same, slim and attractive. But the mens body types vary from strong and muscular to small and clever. Some people are offended by the lack of body types and have asked for more of a variety,but not much has changed.

Equally important is the sexist dialogue between male and female characters. Many games have interactions between a male and female character and most of the time the male is rude or tries to flirt with the female. Not to mention the way that the majority of female characters are portrayed, they are usually either completely helpless or are rude and self centered. It is very rare to see a strong and independent female character in many games these days.

That aside, the statistics between men and women are not very different as well. According to Michele Zorrilla a study made in 2007 shows that men do have better hand eye coordination than women do when playing, but women are much better at strategizing and planning ahead. When it comes to deciding who is better it always depends on the game.

Correspondingly men are more likely to rush through a game unlike women who are more likely to take their time. Since men have better hand eye coordination they are generally better at an first person shooter (FPS) while females are great at strategizing, so a puzzle or quest game would be easy for them. Either way it all depends on the amount of time the person has been playing.

Factoring in other genres of video games, out of the many sport games players only 2% of them are female. Another shocking percentage is that only 7% of gamers are female when it comes to an Fps. In the big picture males populate most of the Fps and MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role play game) games.

Overall both genders are equally as good as one another. Nobody should ever be judged by their rank or skill level, but them as a person. Sexism is just something we can’t completely eliminate from our society but we can make it better by reporting it or changing the subject as soon as you can. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect no matter what their gender is.

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