I've been watching alot of videos and reading alot of forum posts on the escapist going on about female representation in video games and I have stumbled across a solution of sorts.
Why not include women in video games that aren't conventionally physically appealing but are not over-the-top gross or outlandish.
You see unattractive men all the time, you can't see the same for women.
If you want to represent anything fairly in a medium - show it in every light. For example (and this is another thing about video games) evil people do not have to be ugly nor do they have to be evil all the time, or REALLY evil, or powerful,intelligent or rich.
Women have varied roles in video games; from sex-symbols for some to lust over, protagonists like in metroid and support characters (i could go on but you get the point). So we can conclude that women have been represented fairly well up until now as far as professions go.
However I think the real leap forward could be made by simply having more (or any) average looking women and characters with real depth in video games.
I know that my points probably don't apply to EVERY game, and im sure people with more knowledge of this medium can name them.-( EDIT -posters, stop fixating on this!) But when both genders are consistently fairly represented we can all stop reading posts like this....
OP UPDATE:
In light of some comments;
* It was wrong to accuse games developers of being lazy and i have edited out that comment - i was trying to influence the consumers opinion as much as any potential developer.
* Most media has unrealistic standards of beauty, enforced by a selection process which is driven by cultural perceptions of beauty. This leads to people feeling bad about themselves because of how they look. I think this is wrong. I see and talk to hundreds of people each day and most of them are not confident about their self-image. It's written all over them, and belied by the way they behave. And worse, i even see people passing judgement upon other people because of how they look. It's unforgivable. It's time the media woke up to the fact that we don't need to see beautiful people to be entertained.
* By creating this thread I wanted to communicate a desire for games and gamers to attempt to lead the field in creating and demanding realistic characters to help improve the medium. I want to see people demanding to see realistic people in games so devs make them. This applies to stereotypes too - who says they have to look, act or be treated in a certain way because of their gender, proffession or sexuality?
I hope this clarifies my points somewhat...
Why not include women in video games that aren't conventionally physically appealing but are not over-the-top gross or outlandish.
You see unattractive men all the time, you can't see the same for women.
If you want to represent anything fairly in a medium - show it in every light. For example (and this is another thing about video games) evil people do not have to be ugly nor do they have to be evil all the time, or REALLY evil, or powerful,intelligent or rich.
Women have varied roles in video games; from sex-symbols for some to lust over, protagonists like in metroid and support characters (i could go on but you get the point). So we can conclude that women have been represented fairly well up until now as far as professions go.
However I think the real leap forward could be made by simply having more (or any) average looking women and characters with real depth in video games.
I know that my points probably don't apply to EVERY game, and im sure people with more knowledge of this medium can name them.-( EDIT -posters, stop fixating on this!) But when both genders are consistently fairly represented we can all stop reading posts like this....
OP UPDATE:
In light of some comments;
* It was wrong to accuse games developers of being lazy and i have edited out that comment - i was trying to influence the consumers opinion as much as any potential developer.
* Most media has unrealistic standards of beauty, enforced by a selection process which is driven by cultural perceptions of beauty. This leads to people feeling bad about themselves because of how they look. I think this is wrong. I see and talk to hundreds of people each day and most of them are not confident about their self-image. It's written all over them, and belied by the way they behave. And worse, i even see people passing judgement upon other people because of how they look. It's unforgivable. It's time the media woke up to the fact that we don't need to see beautiful people to be entertained.
* By creating this thread I wanted to communicate a desire for games and gamers to attempt to lead the field in creating and demanding realistic characters to help improve the medium. I want to see people demanding to see realistic people in games so devs make them. This applies to stereotypes too - who says they have to look, act or be treated in a certain way because of their gender, proffession or sexuality?
I hope this clarifies my points somewhat...
