No, I’m not talking about pink tops, dresses, or accessories. Well, to some degree, yes, but I’m not focusing only on the aspect of female clothing. You might have heard of the general term “Pink Tax” before, and if you haven’t, it’s essentially an extra amount that women pay for their daily products. Whether it be shampoo, clothes, or cosmetics, the prices for these commodities exceed that of those marketed for men.

And no, women don’t have a say in this matter because gender-based discrimination is rooted so deeply into society that most women accept these political impositions as it is. History and literature have long been dedicated to these stereotypical perceptions, and gaming culture has grown to endorse this idea as well.

The first video games were established as early as the 1970’s when Atari introduced Pong as an arcade game. It was a novel idea aimed to satisfy the interests of men and women at all ages. However, with the collapse of the video game market in 1983, things started to change. Lina Eklund writes in her excerpt Who are the causal gamers? Gender tropes and tokenism in game culture that, “this shift towards young men changed ideas about who the consumers of digital games were… During the 1980’s to 1990’s, digital games were seen as boy’s toys… leading to a marginalization of female users.” (pg 17).

This began the division of game genres marketed to the public. Men were subconsciously geared towards sports, fighting, and first person shooter games. Simply speaking, it was a “boy’s only” exclusive entourage of past times. Of course, this thought was not only subtly pushed by corporate gaming companies. “In the mid-1990’s the first ‘pink games’ wave hit the industry in the wake of a very successful Barbie Fashion Designer.” (pg 17). Gaming companies seemed to capitalize on the idea that the best way to include the female population was to provide them the ability to virtually play dress-up (because that’s what ALL women are interested and like right?).

This concept paved the road to the later modernized games that now consist of higher-quality graphics and applications. “Dividing gamers into hardcore and casual is now one of the bases for understanding different types of games/ers both in academia and industry classification…” (pg 18). Casual games, especially mobile games, tend to be looked down upon because it’s not a “real” game. Well, is it not a “real” game because casual games don’t involve violence? Because it’s a game that requires no previous knowledge or interactive history? Because it doesn’t require complete dedication of money? Or could it possibly be that “casual gamers are often portrayed as female, especially in reports from the game industry” that there is reluctance to accept this categorization(pg 18)?

It’s not hard to see what’s odd about all these “controversial” debates. The truth is that all the money-grubbing ideas have inadvertently created a steeper association with stereotypical views. Games can be and should be enjoyed by everybody regardless of gender; they are as real as you and me.

Works Cited:

Eklund, Lina. “Who are the casual gamers? Gender tropes and tokenism in game culture.” Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The changing gaming landscape. Ed. Tama Leaver and Michele Willson. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. 15–30. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 24 Feb. 2020. .