Playing Dirty: Women Warriors and Fairy Queens
Every other week for the past nine months, Bonnie Ruberg has contributed Playing Dirty, a column on sex and gender in video games. Since Bonnie is taking a hiatus to work for The Village Voice, this will be her last Playing Dirty piece--at least for a little while: Female gamers have long rolled their eyes at the role of women in video games. Rightfully so. An overwhelming majority of female characters in mainstream games are either super helpless (think classic Princess Peach) or super sexualized (think Lara Croft). Even nowadays, it's darn hard to come across a decent role model for girl gamers in the games they love. Just finding a reasonably strong female character -- a diplomat into the mostly male world of gaming who can convince men and women alike that beautiful, buxomly women won't always need saving, or even behind-the-scenes manipulation from men -- is itself a serious challenge.But, come on, we know all that already, right?. The question is, what are we doing about it? Which mainstream games are taking up the challenge and defying video game gender roles? Until recently, I would have said almost none -- at least, none in any significant way (a paired-down bosom here, a spin-off game there). Then came Odin Sphere.
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