Rebuttal to Videogame Sexism
By: ~Fryguy~

In lieu of the recent article about video game sexism I would like to raise a few points. Video games are a business, and as much as it pains me to say it, business is a male-driven entity. It's not fair, it's not right, but it's been that way since business as a term was coined. Men maintain their powerful position by pushing ideologies of male power and female submission. That is the structure of ancient through to modern society. Therefore, it naturally follows that professions in which males have creative control over the majority of the production would therefore be male-dominated, right?

Well... not really.

The previous article on this subject focused on Princess Peach and Princess Zelda. Note that both of them are in positions of wealth and power, as they are both princesses. They both live in fantastic castles, and they both seem to have more ruling power than their fathers (that is, if you take comics and TV shows to be somewhat accurate). Princess Peach is clearly a female stereotype, however. She wears pink, her name is "Peach" (and it was changed from the less feminine "Toadstool"), she is often seen surrounded by sparkles or blossoms, and her voice is soft and very young. But Zelda doesn't seem to quite fit this stereotype. Not only does she not seem to choose to wear a dress, but she's more adventurous, she has a name that's not commonly associated with femininity, and throughout the Legends of Zelda she is more known for adventure, secret passageways that lead through sewers, and so forth. Her handmaiden Impa is also far from your stereotyped female character, and what about the other females in the Zelda series. Could the same be said for all of them?

Then we move on to Metroid. Here, not only is the lead hero a female, but a beautiful yet very powerful, cool and strong female. She single handedly destroyed a gang of space pirates (twice) and wiped out a deadly species of creature. Not only that, but at the end of Metroid 2, when the Metroid follows her, she doesn't keep it alive due to any maternal instinct, but purely due to it's energy-producing abilities being vital to mankind. She's strong of character and mind, she's not bubbly, and aside from her figure, she is far from stereotyped.

We can move through Nintendo's games in this manner. While I agree that generally it is the male characters who get the main hero/villain roles, and females who get the submissive roles of "rescuee", it is not worth making an unwarranted generalisation from one character, and the general position of the other. Don't forget, whose magic was it who actually weakened Ganon until he was defeated, the sages, most of whom were female. Who prayed to defeat Giygas? Paula. Who defeated the Metroids? Samus. The females may have some stereotyped roles, but video game females are far from powerless and utterly submissive.