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Sexism in video games essay
Gender roles and video games
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Manhood is also linked deeply to ads and movies especially because they are being based to from and for our own behavior. This makes boys trapped in a masculinity circle. The society defines their role which in turn becomes predictions for them. The stereotypes about how men should act affects on how a boy should act, even though as a child they were given more freedom on how they want to present and express
Response The documentaries Tough Guys and Killing us Softly, really brought to light the way masculinity and femininity are represented in our society. The characteristics and associations that are made when these words are thought of are bizarre and not natural. I strongly believe that both masculinity and femininity are learned characteristics from the human environment. I often wonder if people would even have these ideas and characteristics that are associated with gender in the beginning of time, or if people have slowly began to define and differentiate the genders throughout the evolution of time.
When we talk about masculinity in America today we theorize that violence that happens more often than we like, from mass shootings or crime in general, including rape and murders in the real world and in the virtual thrill world of videogames and movies we find a parallel connection of masculinity as violent. Even though an overwhelming majority of violence is committed by men and boys we as americans rarely connect gender as a major key in violence. But when we lay out the plane lines about culture of violence were almost always hinting that it is a masculine trait that is a taught behavior. The modern society has conjured up the idea of the ideal man, that showing emotions is wrong but one must be charming, seeming smartish but more of an attitude of control showing that manhood has a hierarchy. Weakening the not so tough guy, society giving them labels to show they are outside of the gender binary.
Masculinity is slowing killing men; with all the pressure and expectations that man have to be a certain image, this can cause many negative effects which can lead to many dangerous and serious situations. Due to all these expectations many bad habits can form such as alcoholism, violence and workaholism. This peer pressure can cause men to have depression or engage in many risky activities that will effect there life in many negative ways, such as injuring themselves. In the article it states that “little boys are, in fact, slightly more sensitive and expressive than little girls” (Kali Holloway). Even though
Consequently, the narrator in The King Herself, “Many of her statues, images, and texts seem part of a carefully calibrated media campaign to bolster the legitimacy of her reign as king-and rationalize her transgression” (Brown 8). As being a part of Pharaoh Lineage, Hatshepsut understood that devising an approach of a male would likely cause her reign to be prolonged. In further support, research regarding gender stereotypes in video games suggested that female characters are characterized as highly sexualized beings while male characters possess exaggerated strength, hypermasculinity, aggressiveness, and detached. They are also less likely to display helping or nurturing qualities (Robinson, Callister, Clark, & Phillips, 2008). These tendencies represent the hallmark for what is labeled as straight-forth, strong leaders.
Representation within media is a powerful thing and the viewpoint often differs with context, such as the gender of the storytellers and the time period in which a piece was written and/or published. William Moulton Marston, the mind behind iconic female superhero Wonder Woman (DC Comics), has once described a need for a new type of woman in comics. He found there was a need for one that defied the weaknesses we usually prescribe to females in general, stating that the female archetype lacks the force, strength, and power needed to make girls want to identify with female characters (American Scholar, 1943). Even then, his heroine could be described as modest and peace-loving, two characteristics he himself described as belonging to the aforementioned weaknesses.
Multiple other places exist where young men learn these behaviors, such as community, school, and in their family; however, Katz argues that one of the most powerful influences is the country’s pervasive media. For example, as movies have progressed, men have grown larger as women grow smaller. Movies such as Rocky, Rambo, and even the Godfather show men as inherently violent, strong, and emotionally underdeveloped, and this becomes the ideal image for boys just as the beautiful, nurturing, thin woman becomes the ideal for girls. Similar to Sapolsky, Katz believes that in order to lessen violence, our society needs to show honest and diverse representations of males rather than blaming
Jackson Katz’s film Tough Guise 2 seeks to expose how the media promotes a toxic ideology behind what makes a man masculine. For decades the print, television, videogames, and film have presented masculinity in a way that makes men think the only way to be manly is to be emotionally unavailable, sexually aggressive, and violent. This ideology has been a curse on culture in America and many other countries around the world. We're not living in the Wild West. We're not a Third World nation.
In the documentary, Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity, the focus is on mass media and society’s influence and expectations of the male gender and how ‘real men’ are defined. “Boys and young men, learn early on that being a so-called, ‘real man,’ means you have to take on the tough-guise,” Jackson Katz, Ph. D. continues, “In other words, you only have to show the world certain parts of yourself that the dominant culture has defined as manly.” In the opening segment of the documentary, Dr. Katz, one of America’s leading anti-sexist activists, provides the audience of how the title was developed. Together with The Media Education Foundation, the documentary encourages the audience to think and analyze the influence mass media has, socially, politically as well as culturally in the development of young men. Tough Guise breaks down the correlation of pop-culture imagery and the social
What constitutes “masculinity?” Sadly, the term has been defined so harshly that it is having detrimental effects on our society. The definitions of gender roles bombard us everywhere, from books, to advertisements, to movies, there is seemingly no place one can hide from these absurd standards. Canadian sociologist Aaron H. Devor points out in his article “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender,” that gender norms are learned early on in life, burdening children with these restrictions (388). This is what makes movies which clearly reject and mock gender roles, such as The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, so refreshing.
The ideology of masculinity, and the guidelines surrounding its validity, is one of the many societal norms constructed by the media. Over the past fifty years, men’s physiques, weapons, and vehicles, among other things, have undergone a massive transformation in published works.
The Incas and the Aztecs often are paired together, as they were part of the same period of time, the 1300s to the 1500s, and similar places, as they lived in regions of South America and Mesoamerica. These two civilizations are different in an economic way, as the Incas were self-sufficient because of agriculture and the Aztecs were more trade based. I argue that the economical differences between the two civilizations were caused by their environment and their technological advancements. Aztecs traded because they needed a way to gain land and in turn, induce beliefs. But first, how did they travel to get goods to other places?
There is a lot of pressure on men in society to be manly; however, what exactly does it mean to be manly? Though many people have different opinions, a lot of them conclude that a man has to be strong and somewhat emotionless to be considered a man. This assumption can lead to Toxic Masculinity, which is “A false idea that men are expected to be as manly as possible” (The Hard, Adrenaline-Soaked Truth About 'Toxic Masculinity, 2017). Men are forced to face these assumptions not only from those around him, but also from people he might see in Media. Media reinforces Toxic Masculinity which in turn causes men to belittle women.
Video Game Characters Transformed by Eating Disorder Support Group An eating disorder support website, Bulimia.com (http://www.bulimia.com/) came up with the idea of shaping video game characters’ bodies into images that represent the average woman’s measurements. According to the educational website that provides information and support to people struggling with eating disorders, video games have grown hyper-realistic over time, yet how they still haven’t managed to portray the female – and if I may add the male – body quite right.
The existing asymmetry in terms of social power between men and women was strengthened through these images, as the stereotyping of women in these categories was associated with lower degrees of social and control. In his book ‘Gender Advertisements’ Erving Goffman describes how feminity and masculinity displayed within western media. In his analysis, Goffman addresses several trends and patterns in how feminity (and masculinity) is portrayed as well as the messages this conveys to the viewer. According to him women are portrayed as soft, vulnerable, fragile, powerless, dreamy, childlike and submissive . Goffman described a number of symbolic ways in which indicative behavior displays the subordination of females to males, the ritualization of subordination is accomplished by using social connotation associated with elevation, location positioning, and body posture .