Gendering

As a sociology major I'm well accustomed to the concept of gendering in society. There are attributes, activities, interests and behaviours that are deemed distinctly "male" and others that are "female".

But this doesn't occur naturally. It's constructed by society. Society has expectations of what gender means. For men I would argue that they are expected to be masculine, physical, confident, successful and able to provide. For women I would argue that they are expected to be feminine, attractive, and willing to support. Of course there are many other expectations but one is limited with the space here & I don't want to take it all up.

Those expectations are introduced to children from a very young age. Blue and pink are demarcated as indicators of gender & toys help to create the distinction. Perhaps the reason why we all think that violence, physicality and video games are inherently linked to testosterone is because that's what we've all been taught to think. If a woman had the same interest in video games, she'd be considered unusual, othered from the norm of women. Similarly, a man who partakes in traditionally 'female' activities is seen as less masculine.

This is evident everywhere. The media and advertising is full of examples of the construction of gender.

Video games are again an extension of that. The lack of women in games or the lack of acknowledgement of female game players is probably normal, when society would expect that by virtue of being female, we're all just interested in shopping, pretty pink clothes & shoes.

Games have their own ideology according to who created them & if they are created by men, they'll have a focus on what those men enjoy, what they like to look at and how they like to play the game.