The Lack of Representational Depth of Women in Gaming

While the over sexualized females in games used to annoy me I am now somewhat amused by it, worrying yes, but I suppose this is because I don’t see it changing anytime soon. Sex sells whatever the medium and to some extent I’m okay with, and even expect it, but what offends me is when these characters or ‘objects of desire’ have no depth, no personality; they become alluring card board cut outs rather than characters. If a female character is well developed as a person/character and is also physically attractive that’s great, advantageous even, but when female characters are placed solely for their digital attributes and in constant need of rescuing it’s somewhat depressing. (That said this isn’t limited to videogames, most media do use women as sex/love interests focusing on their visual attributes or how they affect male characters rather than creating well rounded characters in their own rights. Hell, even the original ‘Guess Who?’ had a disturbing ratio of 5 women to 19 men which meant if you got a woman you were screwed! Not an overly inspiring view of my gender to my 6 year old self).  In my experience most competent/developed female characters or representations of female gamers are on the extremes of the scale, either hyper-sexualised with strategically placed pieces of fabric, heels, lots of loose hair and very little brain power or androgynous tomboys; as if women can’t be attractive and kickass at the same time, baffling I know. This creates a vital role model gap for young female gamers, perhaps contributing to the impression that female gamers are rare mythical creatures (e.g. team unicorn - to me they are making the situation worse by playing further into the role of the sexualised female, seeming to lack much depth or personality behind their boobs) despite making up 40% of ‘gamers’.  While I have problems with the depth in representations of women in gaming, it’s hard not to notice sadly these problems aren’t limited to females, but to men, race and religion in varying manners. (For example many male characters are extremely hyper-masculinised (while images of male gamers are nerdified as it were) and perhaps this is seen as less of a problem as it’s not so much to paint them as objects of sexual desire, as it is with women, but to create an object of ultimate heroism, capable of anything however unrealistic)