Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Are game developers ethically responsible for gender roles in games?


Mike Doolittle, a writer at gamecritics.com, has contributed a very interesting article questioning some of the feminist views of fellow writer Alex Raymond. He mentions some specific portrayals of females in games and defends these representations as perfectly acceptable based on the idea of artistic freedom for game developers.

This sort of discussion on gender roles always fascinates me. There are some valid concerns on both sides of the argument, but I tend to agree with Mike Doolittle in the end. The article is overflowing with comments, but I'd like to invite people who have traditional ideas about gender roles to post them here. Of course comments that would directly counter those ideas are welcome also. What are your thoughts on the article? Have you been concerned in the past by the portrayal of females in video games or other media? Is the idea of gender roles important or an illusion that belongs in the past?

"We have a new writer in town, a self-proclaimed feminist by the name of Alex Raymond, who at the time of writing has graced our site with three op-eds on the representation of women in video games. While I think issues of gender representation in video games are a perfectly valid and worthwhile topic, I'm consistently finding Alex's articles to be misguided and occasionally misinformed attempts to promote dubious and unscientific ideals about female equality."


Link to the full article: http://www.gamecritics.com/mike-doolittle/are-game-developers-ethically-responsible-for-gender-roles-in-games