Video Games and Gender: the Depiction of Women in “Tokimeki Memorial Girl’S Side: 1St Love”
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ReVisions Video Games and Gender: The Depiction of Women in “Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st love” Franziska Siewert Published on: Mar 19, 2018 License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0) ReVisions Video Games and Gender: The Depiction of Women in “Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st love” 1 Introduction The ongoing discussion about gender equality can be found in any aspect of daily life. One can’t imagine nowadays’ life without media being part of it, as media reflects society as well as we are influenced by the depiction of world through media that we are consuming every day. In that way, it is necessary to also take a look at video games and how they are influenced by ongoing circumstances of cultural, historical and economic developments but also in what kind of way they influence our daily life in return. In this paper I am going to give an overview on the state of research concerning gender issues and its influence on video game industry. Research shows that there is not only a necessity for deeper consideration of ongoing inequality that women are still confronted with, but that the gender discourse itself created a gender specific mindset that highlights but also strengthens prejudices. In terms of video game industry, the invention of “women’s games” in that way is both a benefit and a problematic issue. To give an impression on the function and influence of “women’s games”, I am going to introduce the Japanese dating simulation game “Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st Love” and describe in what way there is a depiction of the ideal woman within the game. Except Tina Richards there aren’t any scientists that analyze “women’s game”, specifically dating simulation game in terms of femininity and gender inequality. In my conclusion I am combining the aspects of the game with current research state concerning the above mentioned problematic issue of gender construction that can be applied to any aspect of nowadays’ society, as I am going to show, to video game industry as well. For further consideration, applying these results to the real world and not just considering the woman inside the game but also the one playing the game, the influence of “women’s games” on women’s self-perception is a fruitful topic for discussion. 2 Video games and gender 2.1 Construction of gender The assumption that the world of video games is predominantly an area of male game players is still quite wide-spread. Concerning gender issues, the fact that many video games are created by male designers and target male players have been realized and analyzed by quite a lot of scientists. Not just video games but technological tools in general are still not that famous around women. Attempts to make jobs in 2 ReVisions Video Games and Gender: The Depiction of Women in “Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st love” technological industry, the internet or video games appear more interesting to a female audience have been made quite often. In that context, the problem that always comes to mind are gender issues, most commonly gender inequality that still seems to be a predominant problem when it comes to nowadays’ life aspects where women don’t seem to have equal opportunities in approach and acknowledgement. On the one hand, we are aiming for a state of gender equality in any sphere of life and given the fact that women still feel inferiority in many areas of daily life surely is a problem that should be overcome in the future. Yet still, scientists began to realize that the ongoing discourse on gender inequality and its expansion on any aspect of life might even strengthen the already existing prejudices and highlight the “construction of a gendered identity” (Jenson/de Castell 2010: 54). In terms of technology, especially for this study in terms of video games, a certain mindset created by the constant discussion on gender issues makes it necessary to take a closer look at video game industry from a critical gender specific point of view. In that case, not just taking the problem of female inferiority into account, but also to what extent the discussion on gender inequality forms an obstacle in itself. 2.2 Women and video games Research on gender and technology describes the field of computer science as still being male-dominated with little percentage of women working in technology industry as well as showing interest in gaming in their free time (Jenson/de Castell 2010: 53). As mentioned before, Jenson and de Castell see one of the reasons for that in the fact that for many years masculinity and femininity in terms of technological skills and interests has been constructed. In that way, men are expected to have good skills in technological field and broad interest in leisure activities like video games. On the contrary, women are confronted with the perception of being “less able”, “less competent” and as a result less interested in technological tools (Jenson/de Castell 2010: 54). Even if they were interested, they wouldn’t have a choice because of lack of skill and the social expectations to perform according to the construction of feminine patterns. Referring to Jenson and de Castell, that construction of femininity influences women in their own self-perception in a way that can be found in many aspects of daily life: “Technological competence, so seen, has less to do with actual skills and more to do with construction of a gendered identity—that is, women lack technological competence to the extent that they seek to appropriately perform femininity; correlatively, men are technologically competent by virtue of their performance of 3 ReVisions Video Games and Gender: The Depiction of Women in “Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st love” masculinity.” (Jenson/de Castell 2010: 54) Being forced into a certain role that has been created over the course of ongoing discussion on gender issues, women have gotten used to performing the role they think is appropriate for them. Valerie Walkerdine realized the dispute women find themselves in concerning expected performance of femininity and chances of individual self-realization. “Not only must the fiction of the gendered splitting be taken apart, but the psychic struggle engaged in by girls and women to live out the impossibly contradictory positions accorded to us must be addressed, as must the paranoias of the powerful that understand women's success as a (conscious or unconscious) threat to their position of superiority.” (Walkerdine 1989: 277) Taking that issue into account, women struggle to find a balance between their real interests – that might be, contrary to the overall prejudice, technological tools like video games – and what the constructed perception of femininity demands them to do, feel and think. Gender discourse in terms of the problem of inequality of women only takes into account that there is a lack of women in fields that are said to be typically men’s area of interest as well as skill. In terms of video game industry, the lack of female players led to the invention of games intentionally created for girls and women according to their probable interests. The goal was to on the one hand make them familiar with technological tools and gain economical profit from female workforce, but also to give them a chance to feel “identification and gratification as women” in technological field (Kim 2009: 166). Various studies have shown that women seem to have different preferences in terms of video game content. For example, instead of violence and competition they find it important to have detailed characters, stories and the possibility to build relationships in an ongoing story throughout the gameplay (Kim 2009: 167). Also, women seem to have problems with identification in the already existing video game industry. There is an overall lack of women in the role of the casual super heroes in video games and even if women play an important role in a certain game, stereotypes and sexualization are still problematic issues. Moreover, as mentioned above, it is uncertain if the invention of video games according to female preferences really reflects their true interests or more or less stresses the patterns of femininity that are expected from women due to ongoing gender constructions. 4 ReVisions Video Games and Gender: The Depiction of Women in “Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st love” 2.3 “Women’s Games” According to the aspects described earlier, to make video games more appealing for the female audience, “women’s games” ( otome gēmu) according to the interests and preferences of girls and young women were established by the Japanese video game industry. The first otome game is said to be “Angelique” which was published in 1994 by an all-female team of Japanese software company Koei. Visualized in a style of shōjo manga2 to make it look familiar for young Japanese women, the main goal of otome games is usually for the female main character “to form interpersonal (romantic) relationships with the (overwhelmingly male) game characters” (Kim 2009: 170). Considering the earlier mentioned presumptions of lack of ability in female players, otome games are simple in usage and related to other multimedia products that make promotion and access for rather unexperienced female players easier (Kim 2009: 170). Moreover, conversations play an important role as the player interacts through dialogues with the characters and usually has to make choices like picking answers that change the ongoing course of the game. On the one hand, otome games make it possible for women to identify and express themselves in the medium of video games.