There have been many discussions surrounding women in games lately. Or perhaps more accurately, the discourse has focused on why women aren’t in games. At the epicenter of the conversation is Anita Sarkeesian’s (2013) hugely popular and equally controversial Tropes vs. Women in Games web video series. In her videos, Sarkeesian reveals the paucity of fully developed female characters in video games. The series also highlights how a large portion of the female characters in games are ultimately relegated to ghettoized roles such as damsel in distress, woman in the refrigerator, or are otherwise represented as insignificant and disposable. In late 2012, the #1ReasonWhy Twitter hashtag brought members of game developing and game playing communities together to discuss the myriad reasons why women leave—or choose not to pursue—careers in the game industry (Plunkett, 2012; Ochsner, 2015). More recently with the GamerGate controversy, highly publicized cases of threats and harassment brought against women in the game industry have led some women to question whether it is worth it to pursue a career in games. Quite understandably, most women are not eager to serve even a short tenure as “the Internet’s most hated person,” an experience described by game developer Zoe Quinn (Quinn, 2014). In sum, game communities and pop culture circles
have been committing a lot of time and talk to discourse around the roles and representations of women in games. These have been, and continue to be, difficult discussions to have, posing problems without straightforward solutions.
- 1 view