Games and Gender

 From: Nick

For my topic I chose to represent the gender-based differences in toy advertising. Though with the current digital era I chose to delve into a little more specific space and chose to use the covers of videogame cases. As video game hard copies as a media are still in large variety and utilize their covers as additional marketing/advertising I thought it fit well enough. In the image you find three games for the Nintendo Switch (a console marketed toward a family audience), two games Murder on the Orient Express and Ace Attorney Apollo Justice, both being detective/mystery solving games (often considered a male fantasy), on either side of Animal Hospital a game where you take in hurt animals (both real and fictional ones) to treat and take care of them (often stereotyped as feminine). This is done to represent the market of videogames being primarily being focused on male consumers as both Ace Attorney and Murder on the Orient Express have a male lead on the cover while Animal Hospital only has a small dog a cat and a unicorn (often tied to femininity or being “girly”). Another reason for these games being selected is that detective themes are often marketed towards boys as that profession is stereotyped as masculine as the role has power, and while Animal Hospital while a veterinarian is stereotyped as feminine because of the role being nurturing. The chapter the “Two Cultures” of Childhood in the book The Two Sexes: Growing up Apart, Coming Together states “Gender schemas define ‘masculine’ as rougher, tougher, and more active while ‘feminine’ as nicer, softer, and more passive. This theme carries through to gender stereotypes applied to adults including associating strength and power with men and warmth and nurturance with women” (60). I feel that this picture shows that there has been progress. It was difficult for me to find and orchestrate a possible picture as videogames have progressively become more inclusive and less strictly gendered. Though I was able to find a disparity it took some time, and an argument can be made that the disparity is not rooted in the games themselves but rather how we treat them. Though I did select two games that would be more traditionally male marketed there is no marketing that explicitly alienates any other individuals along the gender spectrum.

 

Work Cited:

 Maccoby, Eleanor E. The Two Sexes: Growing up Apart, Coming Together. Harvard University Press, 2003.