Videogames and the representation of men and women: an international perspective

In the last few decades, videogames have become a mass phenomenon and have progressively carved out an important space in society and culture. Today, they have growing capabilities to reproduce realistic scenarios, and are increasingly used as an artistic medium with significant narrative potential. In this context, players also need to confront with the representation of aspects of the Self, moving and interacting within video games’ parallel worlds. How these aspects are represented in media can be an important influence on a psychological, cultural and social level. Gender representation can be argued to be almost universal in media and reflects real-world beliefs and attitudes. Despite areas of progress, videogames often feature sexist, prejudiced or biased representations of men and women, both from an aesthetical and narrative point of view. This contribution will discuss the role of gender representation in videogames, aiming to summarize the main features and specificities of different portrayals. Specifically, men characters were over represented compared to women characters as a lead both in the narrative and in promotional material, although recent improvements were observed. Portrayals of womenappeared to feature lean-ideal body idealization, sexualization, objectification, as well as reduced agency. Moreover, portrayals of men appeared to feature muscular-ideal body idealization, restrictive emotionality, and the overuse of aggressiveness and assertiveness. These restrictive representations can have harmful consequences in the users’ reality, such as fostering sexist attitudes and beliefs, promoting restrictive gender roles and ideals of appearance, as well as increasing tolerance of violent behaviors. This analysis suggests that reducing stereotypical and sexist representations, promoting diverse and nuanced representations, and efforts for critical engagement with media portrayals may help reduce these negative effects.