Sexism

The images that I have chosen for this term include cover and booklet art from one of my favorite video games from when I was younger. I wanted to especially emphasize the appearance of the main female character, Yuna.

To explore the idea of sexism I decided to look through my collection of video games. I have heard on and off for many years about how sexist video games can be towards women - objectifying them, portraying them as helpless and weak, and them simply not wearing enough clothing. While I knew that I didn't have any games that contained extremely obvious examples, I wanted to see in what ways the games I had enjoyed so much as a young teen contained more subtle forms of sexism. I chose to examine the game Final Fantasy X, and its main female character Yuna for a couple of reasons. First I really enjoyed this game, and therefore I devoted a lot of time and energy into playing it. This also meant that I remember a good bit about the plot, characters, and other aspects of it even though I haven't played it in years. A few key things stood out to me as I thought about the character of Yuna and how she is portrayed. While she is not scantily clad she does wear an extremely feminine outfit (which seems rather impractical when it comes time for physical battles that she can participate in). She is also shown as young, naive, and in need of protection - even though she herself is capable of very powerful magic. This magical ability is somewhat downplayed in the game's fighting system and she is more often used as a healer rather than a fighter, which could be seen as a more traditional female role for her to take on. Yuna is also prone to emotional outbursts and at times seems to act like a spoiled child. All of these things seems to relate to what Lorber calls "components of gender," and more specifically "gender statuses" which are "the socially recognized genders in a society and the norms and expectations for their enactment behaviorally...emotionally, and physically." (30)  Thought her behaviors, physical appearance, and emotional displays the character of Yuna is presented to the audience in a way one could consider typical of a female. She fits the "gender imagery," which is the "cultural representations of gender and embodiment of gender in symbolic language and artistic productions that reproduce and legitimate gender statuses." (30-31) I would argue that video games are a form of "artistic productions" that are created by a select few (often men), for mass consumption by a diverse population of consumers. Even in subtle ways these games can perpetuate and reenforce the gender norms that our society has in place for men and women.