Sexism In Video Games

When someone thinks of video games, one would mostly think of men designing, playing, and streaming the game. However, there is a community of female players who are breaking this stereotype. Unfortunately, women are facing sexism, sexual harassment, triggering language, explicit pictures, and sexual assault from men who feel inferior that women are in the gaming industry as a player or developer. This isn’t current problem, sexism since 1982 when there was a leaked design for Texas Instrument’s,”Hunt the Wumpus” which contained an early sketch of the game’s monster that resembles a fanged vagina and blood stains left by the monster as menstrual. There has been many attempts to deescalate certain aspects of sexism but yet there is still sexism existing in the world.

In the production of video games, there is a term called male gaze. Andy Simmons provided the definition as ,” the sexual politics of the gaze and suggests a sexualised way of looking that empowers men and objectifies women.” To go into more detailed in male gaze, woman are positioned or framed to please a man’s desire. In video games it can just be when a camera rests on a character’s butt or breasts during a cutscene, the clothing, or even the way the character is talking or walking. For example, Anita Sarkeesian found modern video games such as Uncharted 2 when the main character is climbing up a wall, the player can stop moving and the angle makes the main character’s butt more prominent. This can be seen with many games such as Destiny 2, Batman, Saints Row, and other big name games. Most of the games provide subtle details such as the swaying of the hips when a female character moves, focusing the attention on the butt.

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Many games are dominated by a male hero whose goal is to save a women, objectifying women and making them a goal. Some people are perceiving these messages as a women’s inability to protect themselves and require a strong male character to provide support and protection. However, when female character are strong enough to protect themselves, they are often sexualised in armor that is revealing and would result in a quick and immediate death. Chainmail bikini armor is a staple in many fighting games and massively multiplayer online games. A male and female character could be the same level with the same perks and wear the same armor but the male character would be more concealed. Most users who see this considers it inappropriate and have made it known that it is unacceptable. Unfortunately developers and publishers are just hiding behind their sales.

Sexual harassment doesn’t escape from users who play video games, an escape from reality. Twitch is a popular live streaming website, where anyone can stream the games they are playing and have an active chat. However those who hide behind their screens takes advantage of their ominosity and sexually harass the streamer, mostly females. In a World of Warcraft live stream, a man known as MetaphorSX was live-streaming World of Warcraft on Twitch and, during a break, decided to rate female Twitch streamers along with his viewers. In his chat, someone linked him to another streamer, a woman with a red top and glasses. Everyone who was watching MetaphorSX can see what was on his monitor so they also saw the woman. In his chat, they were rating the woman and explicitly making sexual references. The woman was Khaljiit, playing League of Legends. She quickly got on and felt offended since she did not do anything wrong or reveal anything yet the little exposure to her breasts gave birth to an everlasting topic to the World of Warcraft streams. Most women like Khaljiit have to carefully pick out their clothing before the stream in order to prevent their chat from insulting them. Only a handful of clothes can do this such as a jacket or hoodie. Why would a woman have to cover up but men can go shirtless and have no-one insult him.

There is a stigma where men think they are better at games and computers than women. However, there are women out there who have been playing or working with computers their whole life. By the Internet Advertising Bureau reveals that 52% of the gaming audience is made up of women in 2014, which means the majority of the gaming industry is played by women. Jennifer Boisier said, “No matter what I did, he kept going…. Then he said, ‘I’ll just do it for you’ and utters the phrase, ‘The PC gaming thing, it’s kinda hard.” Little did the man know, Jennifer has been playing games since she was 14 yet, the sexism was apparent here. The man talked about the very basics of computer such as frames per second. This shows how belittling men are towards women. Men think they are superior in this category, not knowing how capable women are in terms of gaming.

Often women admitted to feeling excluded around expos and conventions and end up not attending the opportunities for connections and networks simply because they are sick and tired of being harassed. David Gaider said that repelling women was a decision that people can just stop. The culture of sexism is deeply ingrained in the industry and the community but slowly, stigmas towards women are slowly changing. With more women coming out and speaking against their treatment and encouraging others to do the same, they are being accepted for positions in the gaming industry. This can be seen in the #Metoo campaigned.

Neoliberalism And Economic Inequality In Different Countries

Over the past few decades, the world economy has expanded rapidly under the influence of neoliberalism. However, neoliberalism is controversial, some people hold a positive attitude towards it, while others hold a negative attitude. Not all developed and developing countries will benefit from the new liberal process. Over time, more and more problems have surfaced as a result of the free market.

In fact, today, with the spread of neoliberalism, economic and social inequality still exists in society, which has resulted in greater di and economic inequality sparities between different social classes and countries. In addition, the development of labor and environment is often accompanied by the global growth of transnational corporations. This neoliberalism is unfair to anyone on this planet, and it is a major cause of economic and social inequality between states and social classes. 

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The implementation of the neoliberal economic policies has provided more employment opportunities for many people and countries, thus this has lead to the remarkable economic development of the country. The implementation of the neoliberal economic policies has provided more employment opportunities for many people and countries, thus leading to the remarkable economic development of the country. Hong Kong is a prime example of a free market. There are not only no tariffs in Hong Kong, but also the government has little market control. The implementation of the neoliberal economic policies has provided more employment opportunities for many people and countries, thus leading to the remarkable economic development of the country. 

Hong Kong is a prime example of a free market. Not only are there no tariffs in Hong Kong, but the government has little market control. Although Hong Kong’s land area is not that large and its natural resources are limited, under the impact of neoliberalism, Hong Kong is one of the leaders in the economic development of Asia, and people’s living standards rank top in the world. In fact, there is no completely free market in this world, because governments always intervene in it. Workers are not completely free to choose, because some rules and restrictions still limit their choices. Hong Kong’s success is hard to replicate. 

There is economic inequality between different countries. For some developing countries, the choice to join the new free market can be a double-edged sword. As these countries develop their economies on the basis of neoliberal policies, they will also face other problems. Some countries have to give up national sovereignty in exchange for WTO membership or accepting IMF loans (Masters, 2). The two international financials were originally designed to ensure equality between nations. However, the fact is that these organizations, in order to gain more benefits from developed countries, forcibly open the market of developing countries according to the rules. Rich countries tend to have more control over the organization because of their deep pockets and power. 

The United States, Russia, Britain, France, and other “big countries” can influence the negotiations of the WTO agenda (Sergie, 2-3). While these developed countries want more from developing countries, they don’t really care about the rules of organizations that are designed to create fair and free markets. Many developing countries have no choice but to participate in this imbalance to raise their economic levels. Unfortunately, this economic inequality often leads to worse.

Mexico, for example, suspended tariff protection for farm products after opening its markets to the United States for some financial assistance from the world bank. This led to a flood of us subsidized corn into the Mexican corn market, which broke the balance of the Mexican domestic corn market (Bello, 1). Ironically, these corn farmers can’t afford to buy their own corn. Not only have these developing countries not actually benefited from new liberalism, but they have also even suffered. 

Neoliberalism has brought many jobs to people, especially women, all over the world. More and more people choose to leave their hometown to work. Sometimes they choose to work abroad, often from poor to rich countries. On the one hand, their country may be too backward to have enough jobs for so many people; On the other hand, if they work in some developed countries, they can get a higher salary. As labor costs rise in developed countries, some big companies want to build factories in developing countries and hire cheap labor locally. When the big companies in developed countries don’t need to focus on simple assembly and disassembly, they can focus more on what they are really good at, especially information technology and creativity.

For example, after Nike moved its production base out of the United States, it began to pay more attention to the sales concept, so as to make products more attractive to customers and obtain higher sales. In the past, most women were not allowed to work. Because of some feudal ideas, their work was mainly housework. 

In Japan, working women also experience gender wage disparities due to corporate and social prejudice against women. However, the emergence of neoliberalism had a positive impact on the working conditions of women. Free trade allows foreign companies to be satisfied with local companies, which forces local companies to put aside their prejudice against female employees and hire more female employees in order to compete with foreign companies (Bhagwati, 75).

The social value of women increased through the flow of neoliberalism. While many, like women, have gained more jobs under trade liberalization, inequality between the working class and the capitalist class remains. Nowadays, in order to maximize profits, many employers exploit workers and force them to use different strategies, such as setting production goals to achieve efficient production (Raworth, 39). These workers have a hard time defending their rights because there are real conflicts between officials and businessmen, and markets are dominated by capitalists. 

The influence of neoliberalism is of great significance to the development of multinational corporations. Many companies used to grow only in their home countries and were not well known in the industry. But as neoliberalism spread, they became famous and became multinational corporations. For example, Nike has become one of the multinational companies through large-scale global market expansion. Its revenue has grown from $2 million to $14 billion in a few decades (Love, 92).

However, behind the development of these multinational companies, labor exploitation is serious. It is a violation of human rights to force child labor in Nike’s African factories and female workers in China to work overtime to produce more goods (Love, 96). Due to poor working conditions, these women and child laborers are at high risk for environmental health problems such as cancer (Hagenloh). 

In addition, if the working environment of workers is dangerous to some extent, their lives may be in great danger. A typical case is the Rana Plaza factory disaster in Dhaka, Bangladesh. More than one thousand people died in the collapse of the building (class discussion). If the boss cared more about the workers who created his wealth and the government cared more about the workers’ safety, the whole disaster could have been avoided. In the wake of these tragedies witnessed by people around the world, the global strategy of multinational companies has become more controversial. As multinationals expand, so does an illegal economic activity around the world. Market liberalization has opened markets around the world, linked websites, and contributed to the growth of illicit economic transactions worldwide. Many works for transnational drug trafficking organizations (Ramshorst). Although neoliberals claim that people have equal opportunities, the reality is very different. Opportunities are limited. 

As multinationals expand, so does an illegal economic activity around the world. Market liberalization has opened markets around the world, linked websites, and contributed to the growth of illicit economic transactions worldwide. Many works for transnational drug trafficking organizations (Ramshorst). Although neoliberals claim that people have equal opportunities, the reality is totally different. Opportunities are limited. In Peru, many people choose to become “backpackers” to transport drugs. While the job can be dangerous, one success can be rewarding a lot (drug?1). Because of poverty and inequality between countries, earning illegal money becomes the only option for these people to survive. Their low levels of education and economic and social status mean they cannot find jobs with decent incomes. 

The most important thing for them is to be able to afford their life. The result of the drug trade has always been violence and corruption. Many of the deaths are drug-related. The illicit economic growth of the drug trade has had a negative impact on society as a whole. Now, it is considered a political issue related to public safety. Although countries cooperated with each other to curb the expansion of the drug trade, the effect was not obvious because the price of illicit drugs remained stable (Ramshorst). The prosperity of illegal businesses around the world is intertwined with neoliberalism. Under these neoliberal policies, these companies prospered even grow faster. 

If developing countries want to become a member of the global market like developed countries, they must have complete and sound political and business systems. Governments in most developing countries fail to appreciate the importance of a complete system. In order to develop rapidly, they just want to learn from the western democratic system and free economic system. However, it does not necessarily apply to different environments and cultures. Neoliberalism does not always lead to better things. It has indeed raised the overall level of the world economy and the average standard of living of its people. 

However, the distribution of power is definitely unbalanced, so it will lead to the inequality between social classes and the country. The crisis accompanying neoliberalism cannot be ignored and solutions need to be found as soon as possible. The ideology of the free market is simple, but when it is realized in reality, it may be different due to the complexity of the world.

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