The shortage of female referents in fiction also extends to the medium of video games. The latest data that are known, provided by BuzzbingoThey reveal that only 12% of the protagonists of the new generation games are women. “Concerned” about this data, researchers Virginia Guichot Reina and Ana María de la Torre Sierra have carried out the study ‘Women in Video Games: An Analysis of the Biased Representation of Female Characters in Current Video Games’published in 2024.
The video game industry has grown to become the most profitable globally, with a turnover of almost 196,000 million dollars a year, according to the report ‘Gaming Report 2024’carried out by the Bain & Company firm. Exceeds to cinema (34,000 million) and Music (28.6 billion). In the national territory, the Spanish Video Games Association (AEVI) Calculate that 82% of young people between 6 and 24 years dedicate an average of more than 7 hours per week to this type of entertainment. In addition, women occupy 49% of this quota and it is expected that their percentage will continue to increase in the coming years.
In the words of the researchers: “The magnitude of the video game industry and the age of the bulk of the players (which begin to expose themselves to these products from a very young age) make these products have more than we imagine in their ideas what it is to be a man and what is to be a woman.” They insist on the importance of “creating female characters that can inspire women in search of referents. These characters have to demonstrate that values such as competitiveness, responsibility and aggressiveness are not exclusively masculine. Any of the values can be adopted equally by men and women, and depend on our environment, our personal experiences and, above all, on our education. ”
“Video games should not continue to be considered only a form of entertainment. They are a sociocultural product, as in the case of literature or cinema, capable of building and transforming the way we perceive the world. ” They add that they are “vehicles for the intergenerational transfer of values and social knowledge.”
Ana María says that the differences in the representation between men and women “are not more accentuated in video games than in other entertainment media, such as cinema.” However, he acknowledges that “the way in which the player interacts with the characters is much more active in the games, because he makes many of the decisions, instead of sitting to see what happens, as he would do in a movie. The consumer is not a spectator, but takes part in what is happening. ” In their work they explain that “the enjoyment of the video game becomes a mechanism for internalization and perpetuation of gender stereotypes.”
“Of the 11 video games that we have chosen, all of them available on several platforms and in the best -selling lists in 2023, only two have a complex female protagonist. That is, he has enough depth to tell his own history and that his interests, his motivations are understood … ”, says Ana María. Virginia points out that advances towards equality between male and female characters “are undeniable”, but that they arrive “little by little.”
Virginia is a titular teacher in the Department of Theory and History of Education and Social Pedagogy of the University of Seville. He teaches the subject “ reveal sexism in educational spaces’, of the Master in Gender Studies and Professional Developmentand is coordinator of ‘Diversity and Coeducation’, subject in the Grade in Early Childhood Educationall at Hispanic University. Ana María is a doctor in education from the same university and has a master’s degree in gender studies and professional development. She is now a doctor’s assistant teacher at the University of Extremadura. In addition, both organize the seminar ‘Video games in female’also made from the US.
Men make decisions
According to the researchers, “sexism is evident when the roles that female characters fulfill are analyzed.” In the video games studied “the glass ceiling is perpetuated”, since “the positions of greater responsibility and the weight in decision making have them, almost always, the men.” In fact, in all male characters they have studied, a total of 85 different professions have been detected, almost double that in female characters (42).
Another study carried out by Cardiff and Glasgow universities entitled ‘Gender Bias in Video Game Dialogue’ He discovered that “men speak twice as much as women in video games.” This conclusion was reached by analyzing each of the written dialogues for 50 role -playing games, which is the genre where the conversations between the characters gain the greatest importance. “The players ask for more and more diversification in the representation of video game characters,” concludes the article.
Given this statement, Ana María wants to remember that “at the reception of the public there is everything. It is true that a part of the players asks for more diversity. Now, precisely the only two female characters that in our study we describe as deep were surrounded by controversy at the time for being ‘too’ diverse. ”
The researcher refers to Aloy, from ‘Horizon: Forbidden West’ and Ellie and Abby, from ‘The Last of Us Part 2’. In the first case, the fans criticized that the protagonist of the sequel to the saga ‘Horizon’ had come out ‘Barba’. That beard, in reality, was facial hair that could now be seen thanks to the technical advances that occurred between the first and the second game, which came out in 2017 and 2022, respectively.
The other controversy, that of Ellie and Abby, arises when images of the video game ‘The Last of Us Part 2’ weeks before the planned release date are filtered. In these images two things could be intuited: one, that Ellie is openly lesbian; The other, which Abby has a muscular physique, especially appreciable in the volume of his arms. These creative decisions and others related to the plot of the video game themselves carried To many players to express their disagreement through the bombing of negative criticism Even before the final product had come out to the market.
Educate to identify macho narratives
Ana María highlights the “importance that this research work does not stay alone in an observation of reality.” “What we want is for teachers to learn to detect these macho narratives in educational materials and, specifically, in video games (which have great potential in the field of education),” adds Virginia.
One of the measures that researchers have managed to apply is the format of the final work of the subject ‘Diversity and coeducation’, belonging to the second course of the degree in Early Childhood Education of the University of Seville. “Students (future teachers), after assimilating course theory, have to deliver a similar project in their intention to which we have made us. They are assigned a video game and, through defined questions, they must analyze this video game to conclude whether he presents gender stereotypes, if he fosters sexist attitudes … ”explains Virginia, who is a teacher of the subject.
Some of the questions that students have to answer are: “What kind of values exalts the video game?”, “Does macho attitudes manifest in the video game?”, “Does the female characters of the game reflect sexist stereotypes?”, “Is the video game clearly addressed to male users?”, “What vision about women transmits the video game analyzed? And about men? Do you feel identified with those female/male models? ”,“ As a future teacher, what recommendations would you make for video games to be a learning tool that fosters equality between women and men? ”.
That some influence the others
Guichot and Torre’s study also explains that “video games can be a means to introduce women to women Stem races (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). In fact, young women who play video games are three times more likely to end up choosing this type of careers. ”
Women who consider video games as a professional option for their future face “a medium traditionally of men and men”, according to the researchers. In fact, the ‘White Book of Spanish Videogame Development 2023’ It shows that women only constitute 26% of the workforce of the Spanish video game industry. This report made it DEV, the Spanish Association of Entertainment Video Games and Software Developersin collaboration with the Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business.
Of course, Ana María and Virginia trust the efforts that make associations, groups and initiatives that “for years, promote equal opportunities and open possibilities for women in the sector.” This is the case of ‘Femdevs’, ‘Girls Make Games’ either ‘The Good Gamer’. In addition, it is planned that 2025 see the launch of at least four high -budget video games (AAA) with female protagonist.
“It is not enough to balance the balance in the stories that video games tell. Machismo is in the business part of the industry, in e-sports … Of course, the more inspiring female characters, the more likely more and more women are joining the video game industry. I think it is another way to balance the balance, along with other efforts, ”concludes Ana María.
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