Survey shows boys think women are underrepresented in video games
A recent exploratory study conducted by Time has found that 47 percent of middle-school and 61 percent of high-school-aged boys believe that female characters in video games are too often treated as sex objects. The survey was conducted to examine issues of sexism in video games and asked over 1,400 students about their feelings surrounding how women are depicted in the medium. What's more, 70 percent of girls surveyed said that the gender of a protagonist doesn't factor into them playing a game while a surprising 78 percent of boys said the same. And 58 percent of boys who identified as gamers think there should be more female heroes in game, like Bayonetta up above, for example. Oh, and reassuringly "very few" of the respondents knew what Gamergate was. Phew.
Like Time writes, as interactive entertainment grows and becomes more and more mainstream, it's important to note the changing attitudes of the future audience. The findings also help dispel the notion that gamers are just horny boys looking for fleeting titillation when a joystick's in-hand. Looking back at this E3's bevy of announcements regarding female representation in big-budget games, it seems like the industry is paying attention too.
