Stereotypes... Females in Video Games

Sexy with a seductive personality, unrealistic breast size and skimpy costume - the industry-wide stereotype of females in video games has become the norm.

This stereotype does not seem to differ depending on game genre. If you think about some famous female video game characters, you will quickly realize that they are all as thin as Lara Croft and as buxom as Bayonetta. They are all either a femme fatal or a damsel in distress. They are all young, as well, which is forgivable. It would be difficult to imagine an 80-year-old woman shooting up enemies and dodging falling boulders. While I happen to like this stereotype many people take offense to it.

Take Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad for example:

Obviously this type of game is not to be taken seriously. A game where you have to hack and slash your way through waves of the living dead with the aim of covering the protagonist in zombie blood in order to use their special ability... eh, yeah that sounds realistic!

The roles that females take in video games began as either captured girlfriends or princesses that need to be rescued. This changed over time, especially with the success of Lara Croft, and nowadays, while not the dominant gender in gaming, the fairer sex  is closing the gap in becoming the main protagonist in a video game.

However the critics seem to look past the fact that most of the female characters in modern video games and computer games tends to be very dominant characters, very strong characters, and characters that have a leadership role which actually portray women in a very positive and strong way. They also fail to question the fact that maybe the males playing these games are just as influenced by the images of the male characters as the women are by the female characters.