by Natasha Lewis Harrington
This weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting some illustrators for the card game Magic: The Gathering. (Yes, I am that kind of geek). I really enjoy the work of one in particular, Michael C. Hayes, for the astonishing variety of personalities displayed by the women he paints. Some are flirty. Some are pious. Some are wary. And this is reflected in the clothes they wear and the poses they strike.
This is a welcome respite from many female game characters, who only seem to have one kind of style (sexy) and one kind of pose (also sexy). When that is clearly a conscious choice on the part of the artist, such as in the case of the flirty archer I mentioned, I think that the provocative pose and clothing tells a fun story. Too often, though, the story seems to be “The artist (or art director) doesn’t know how to do anything else.”
But this is a psych blog, not an art critique blog. You may find the homogeneity of women in games to be monotonous or you may find it appealing—it’s a matter of personal taste. It’s subjective.
What is not subjective is the effect that gratuitous sexualization of characters has on the people who play the games. Some people assume (understandably) that since so many of the women are both sexually appealing and powerful, that it is the best of both worlds. However, a 2009 study suggests that this may not have the expected effect.
The Study
The name of the study is “The Effects of the Sexualization of Female Video Game Characters on Gender Stereotyping and Female Self-Concept,” by Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz and Dana Mastro. It was published in 2009 in an academic journal called Sex Roles.
328 American college students at a school in the Southwest participated in the study. Some (the “sexualized” condition) played the chapter of Tomb Raider: Legend called “Japan,” in which main character Lara Croft was dressed in a revealing evening gown that highlighted her curves. Others (the “non-sexualized” condition) played the chapter called “Kazakhstan,” in which she wore winter clothing that de-emphasized her figure.
Using two chapters of the same game minimized the variables between the two groups, although it is important to consider that the content of the levels may have been different, as well as the fact that using a well-known game means that players in the nonsexualized condition may have been influenced by the fact that Lara Croft is already widely known for her body.
A third group didn’t play any game at all. All three groups filled out surveys about their gaming habits, their familiarity with Lara Croft, their beliefs about gender roles, their self-esteem, and their self-efficacy (i.e. how much they see themselves as able to accomplish things). People who played the games were also asked about “presence”—how immersed they were in the game and how much they felt like they were there.
The Results
So, the good news is that there were no significant differences between the conditions on women’s self-esteem. However, women who played the game with sexualized Lara felt significantly lower (p < .05) self-efficacy than those who played no video game.
The difference between self-esteem and self-efficacy is that self-esteem is about feelings of worth, while self-efficacy is about feelings of competence. For example, someone can feel valued but helpless—or even the inverse, having faith in her own abilities but still feeling worthless.
Looking at the decreased self-efficacy, the Behm-Morawitz and Mastro suggested that “…this may have occurred because the sexualization of the character confines her and limits her power by making her sexualized body her most prominent feature (p. 819).”
In addition, the game appeared to influence how people felt about women’s abilities in general. Both men and women in the sexualized condition rated the physical capability of women as significantly lower (p<.05) compared to people who played the nonsexualized condition, and the difference was also found between women who played the sexualized condition and women who played no video game.
In Conclusion
While people weren’t affected by the sexualized character in every area looked at (in addition to self-esteem, no significant effect was found for beliefs about women’s mental abilities, expectations about how women should groom themselves, and opinions about domestic and professional roles), even thirty minutes with the game did appear to have a significant impact on how men view women and how women view themselves.
While I would like to see this study reproduced with tighter control over the variables (using an unknown character, possibly modding a game so people can play the same level in two different outfits—even within the same game, chapters can have very different content) these preliminary findings open some very important questions.
Based on this, it is important to realize that the portrayal of women in games is more than a philosophical or aesthetic question. As this study was conducted with college students, I would especially want to know more about how this kind of thing affects (presumably more vulnerable) teenagers and kids.
And in addition to matters of ethics or responsibility, there are some practical implications. With more and more women playing games, it seems wise to avoid alienating them whenever possible. It would be nice if these characters could be blatant eye candy and good role models/player avatars (I mean, I’m a gamer, it’s not like I hate fun) but it looks like we need to start thinking seriously about what the trade-offs are.
Geek Culture 
