Are mothers to blame for a never ending violent cycle?

Recently we have talked about women and cmc in lecture and it just so happened to parallel my crim 453 class lecture “the objectification and victimization of women.”

In video games such as Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider, and Anime series’ unfortunately it isn’t uncommon to see women objectified and often victimized. For example, in Grand Theft Auto women are often portrayed as prostitutes or trophies.  Sometimes players are even given monetary rewards for being violent and beating up these women.

            Surely these video games are rated ‘M’ for ‘mature audiences’ in attempt to keep young avid video gamers from exposure to such violence. Although there are these attempts by society, it depends on the individual household. If a child asks for this rated ‘M’ game there are mothers that will say no way, its rated ‘M’ for a reason, you can wait. Then there are mothers that will run out the next opportunity they get and purchase the game for their child. Once it is in the child’s hands they are exposed to different virtual worlds that they might not be mature enough to understand yet. By not being able to understand this it may lead to future difficulties for children, including but not limited to, difficulties distinguishing between real life and virtual life and what’s expected and excepted in virtual life verses real life.     

            By these video games objectifying and victimizing women, although it wasn’t meant for a young audience, that young audience may think its okay to do the same in real life. Adding to the never-ending vicious cycle.

            In an article I found about this vicious cycle provides research about the relationship between the two. Media psychologist Dr. Karen Dill-Shackleford (2011) stated that when women are constantly shown as sex objects rather than a counterpart, constantly represented as demeaning and degraded, and constantly portrayed as submissive, this supports anti-women and violent attitudes.

            Even in video games rendered towards young audiences such as Mario Bros women are used as damsels in distress. For example, Princess Peach (or Daisy; point being that it is a female character) is placed in a situation that she can’t escape from on her own, rather she must be rescued from the ‘bad guy’ by a dominate male character. When questioned about the issue brought about by this plot, developers say it is still being used today, and will continue to be used, because the damsel in distress is an ‘easy motivation.’

            If something is easy everyone would do it, hence probably why Nintendo refuses to let up on the reigns of portraying women as weak or victims. It’s easy enough for everyone to play, therefore possibly higher sales. It seems more like a lucrative business move on their part rather than re-modifying the game so that it doesn’t promote violence in an already highly violent society. Whether Nintendo realizes it or not their video games are just as at fault for promoting violence as others such as Tomb Raider. Even though there isn’t as much gore or weapons, it doesn’t matter how much violence is physically incorporated, the ideology is there and that’s what matters most. Playing video games at a young age and being exposed to this is probably partially at fault for the expectation of more violence as their gaming progresses. The older they become, the more challenges they want to encounter, more gore, etc.