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Benjamin Lacy
Professor Labbato
History of Sexuality in the Americas
24 October 2015
Gaming
There are several stereotypes that separate the characteristics of males and females. One
stereotypical characteristic is that only males play video games. Some people may agree that
females can be gamers, but only males play video games well. Despite what people say or think,
stereotypes should not define a situation. While female gamers are less common than male
gamers, they are just as capable of gaming as males are. Online gaming is currently the most
popular source of gaming, which many people play and interact together in the activity. The
gaming society is very large, and diverse, containing many races, genders, and ages of people,
including younger children. Having a negative portrayal towards women in the gaming society
should be frowned upon. To help give this a more positive impact, people need to be aware of
the difference between how something usually is, and what it can possibly be. Females in the
gaming society might not be as common as males, but it is important to accept them, and not
stereotype people based on their gender, not only to be welcoming and treat everyone fairly, but
also to set a good example to younger gamers who often behave how other people around them
do.
In order for the gaming society to be welcoming, and avoiding gender stereotypes as well
as it possibly can, it will take cooperation from both gamers and game developers. Due to the
fact that males are thought to game more than females, many game creators show signs of male
dominance within the games based on their own views and cultural beliefs (Schott, Horrell 36).
With women gaining more power in most cultures, and also playing video games more, they

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should start to include women more in when developing games. From a personal account, I have
noticed that there is a much wider variety of female characters that you can play as in games,
which seems much more including and welcoming to women gamers. One factor that will
convince game developers to make their games more appealing to women by adding female
characters is the fact that it adds more variety to the game, and helps them from being less
repetitive (Jenson, de Castell 53). Another convincing reason for game developers to consider
women gamers when making their games is that between fourteen and twenty-five percent of
their market consists of female gamers, which is easily the difference of being better than the
competitors within the field (Schott, Horrell 37). To add on to these points about women gamers
becoming more relevant, several game developers are actually hiring women game developers to
help connect to the female audience (Jenson, de Castell 60).
Some people may argue that women in the gaming society should not have an impact on
how games are made, and dont belong in violence based games. They will then proceed by
ignorantly excluding them. However, in the 21st century discrimination should not exist. It is
important to look at each gamer the same despite whether they are male or female, as opposed to
looking at it as a primarily male culture, because using assumptions and stereotypes is often
destructive towards social equality (Schott, Horrell 38). Women gamers may not be as common
as male gamers, but that leaves no reason to look down upon them, rather to maybe look at them
as an inspiration to others. There are also issues with women being sexually harassed on video
games. This comes partially as a result of virtual contact as opposed to what people would do in
face to face contact (Royse, Lee, Undrahbuyan, Hopson, Consalvo 556). To elaborate on this,
males feel more reckless and feel the need to not respect others simply because they arent face
to face with them, which leads to the harassment. This may seem unwelcoming toward women in

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the gaming society, but this is an issue that is getting progressively better as each day goes by.
Women dont have to play games originally made to be played by men. There are plenty of
games made specifically for women who take an interest in certain genres, which is very
including to women in the gaming society (Royse, Lee, Undrahbuyan, Hopson, Consalvo 557).
Setting a good example to youth in the gaming society is very important, especially for
the future of our country. In the United States, about 9 billion dollars of video game merchandise
is sold each year (Gottschalk 4). As a result of such a large target audience, a very large number
of these games are played online, which involves social interactions between all of these people
through microphones and headsets. This social aspect involved in several games has become so
common, which emphasizes the importance of having a well accepting culture (Gottschalk 4).
The portrayal of females that game and use technology are sometimes viewed negatively in ways
of assuming that they arent capable of gaming or using technology as well as males (Jenson, De
Castell 54).If people are saying bad things about women, it will set a very bad example to
younger players who dont quite have an opinion on much, and tend to take after what they hear.
In the final analysis, women in the gaming society is a growing trend, one that has dealt
with some issues, but it is progressively getting better as more and more women are gaming.
There are obviously still racists, sexists, and other types of close-minded people in the world, but
as a whole, America is very accepting and is adjusting well to the growth of the number of
women gamers. Overall, women gamers are treated well, and it is only getting better at this point
just like it has been for any similar situation America has dealt with in the past. This will lead to
hopefully set a good example to Americas youth as an accepting society, and will give people
the idea that stereotypes are never true to the groups of people that they point at. This may be a
minor issue compared to other things women have dealt with in this past due to the fact that

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women are better off now, but it portrays a greater meaning on the acceptance of the American
society. It is very important that people treat female gamers, just as they would male gamers,
because they are all just a group of people trying to have fun. This will create a fun, equal, and
healthy gaming environment for people to be involved in on their free time.

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Works Cited
Gottschalk, Simon. "Videology: Video-Games as Postmodern Sites/Sights of Ideological Reproduction." JSTOR.
Wiley, May 1995. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
http://www.jstor.org.librarylink.uncc.edu/stable/pdf/10.1525/si.1995.18.1.1.pdf?acceptTC=true
Royse, Pam, Joon Lee, Baasanjav Undrahbuyan, Mark Hopson, and Mia Consalvo. Nms.SagePub.com. Sage
Publications, 2007. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.
http://nms.sagepub.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/content/9/4/555.full.pdf+html
Schott, Gareth R., and Kirsty R. Horrell. "Girl Gamers and Their Relationship with the Gaming Culture."
Http://.sagepub.com. Convergence, Dec. 2000. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.
http://con.sagepub.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/content/6/4/36.full.pdf+html
Jenson, Jennifer, and Suzanne De Castell. "Gender, Simulation, and Gaming: Research Review and Redirections."
Http://sg.sagepub.com. Simulation and Gaming, Feb. 2010. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
http://sag.sagepub.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/content/41/1/51.full.pdf+html