It is difficult to avoid the eerie similarities between the gameplay in Panty Raider and the assaults in Central Park: females have liquid thrown on them and are exposed in their underwear. Clearly, the real life assaults were much more graphic and violent than Panty Raider, which, according to the game designers, is meant to be tongue-in-cheek and humorous. However, the similarities between the two bring up the issue of the portrayal of sexual assault in games and its potential effects on those who play them. Some people are asking, "Did the game Panty Raider have any effect on those men who perpetrated the assaults in Central Park?" Others are leading a battle cry to ban Panty Raider and the portrayal of sexual violence in games, believing that there is indeed a very serious correlation between the sexual objectification of women in games and other media and sexual assault against women in real life.
'Masculinity' is a concept that is made up of more rigid stereotypes than femininity. Representations of men across all media tend to focus on the following:
-
Strength - physical and intellectual
-
Power
-
Sexual attractiveness (which may be based on the above)
-
Physique
-
Independence (of thought, action)
Male characters are often represented as isolated, as not needing to rely on others (the lone hero). If they capitulate to being part of a family, it is often part of the resolution of a narrative, rather than an integral factor in the initial equilibrium. It is interesting to note that the male physique is becoming more important a part of representations of masculinity. 'Serious' Hollywood actors in their forties (e.g. Willem Dafoe, Kevin Spacey) are expected to have a level of 'buffness' that was not aspired to even by young heart-throbs 40 years ago (Connery in Thunderball 1965).
Increasingly, men are finding it as difficult to live up to their media representations as women are to theirs. This is partly because of the increased media focus on masculinity - think of the burgeoning market in men's magazines, both lifestyle and health - and the increasing emphasis on even ordinary white collar male workers (who used to sport their beer-gut with pride) having the muscle definition of a professional swimmer. Anorexia in teenage males has increased alarmingly in recent years, and recent high school shootings have been the result of extreme body-consciousness among the same demographic group.
As media representations of masculinity become more specifically targeted at audiences with product promotion in mind (think of the huge profits now made from male fashion, male skin & haircare products, fitness products such as weights, clothing etc), men are encouraged, just as women have been for many years, to aspire to be like (to look/behave in the same way) the role models they see in magazines.
This is often an unrealistic target to set, and awareness of this is growing. Whilst some men are concerned about living up to the ideal types represented in magazines, others are worried by what they perceive as an increasing anti-male bias in the media. There is growing support for the idea that men are represented unfairly in the media.
However, men are still represented as TV drama characters up to 3 times more frequently than women, and tend to be the predominant focus of news stories.
The representations of women that do make it onto page and screen do tend to be stereotypical, in terms of conforming to societal expectations, and characters that do not fit into the mould tend to be seen as dangerous and deviant- they get their comeuppance, particularly in the movies. Think of Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) in Fatal Attraction or, more recently, Teena Brandon/Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank) in Boys Don't Cry. America seems to expect its women to behave better than their European counterparts - British viewers adored the antics of Patsy & Edina in Absolutely Fabulous, but these had to be severely toned down (less swearing, NO drug-taking) for the US remake, High Society (which was a flop).
Discussions of women's representation in the media tend to revolve around the focus on physical beauty to the near-exclusion of other values, the lack of powerful female role models, and the extremely artificial nature of such portrayals, which bear little or no relation to the reality experience by women across the planet.
Before the world was told that being fat was wrong, women were praised for their voluptuous bodies. Full breasts and large hips were considered sexy and men ‘chose’ women with these body types because they were ideal for child bearing. Have you ever noticed that in most cases, female animals are larger than their male counterparts? There is good reason for this. Natural selection has made the bodies of female animals larger in evolution. Women are the only creatures that are forced to have a slender figure. Artists throughout history, however, have upheld the previous idea that women of all shapes and sizes are beautiful and to be admired.
Still, it seems difficult to dispute that the attainment of the slender ideal is very painful for many women. It is not liberating by any means. Only five percent of women can achieve the ideal fashion model form – implying that it is a fruitless task for women to pursue. Women develop a highly damaging relationship with food that does very little except limit their lives.
Advertising has served as a disciplinary force in the lives of women. Advertisers create images that dictate cultural trends indicative of the time. In the current disruption of gender roles, there seems to be a cultural uprising against women's increasing power. The uprising is noticeable in advertising. The dominating image of the painfully thin woman in advertising remains the ideal for American and European women. The grim truth is that attaining the slender body of today is not realistic for most women. Our bodies are not naturally shaped like those of twelve-year old boys. Eating disorders are on the rise, and the relationship women have with food is becoming an increasingly dangerous one. In order for patriarchy to continue to thrive, women's mobility must be limited. Is there a better way to limit a person than to starve them?
There is a need for women to re-define themselves in order to begin the reversal of gender oppression. We cannot accept patriarchal definitions of our bodies and ourselves. We need a new goddess, a new woman, a new cultural female icon that does not limit women. As Kim Chernin has written in Reinventing Eve: Modern Woman in Search of Herself, we need to reflect on the "Woman Who Is Not Yet":
"These reflections on the Woman Who Is Not Yet are linked together by a fascination with food and by the general questions why food is forbidden to modern woman. Thus, the tyranny of slenderness encourages us to regard food with a sense of dread because eating leads us away from the present cultural ideal for slenderness in women and back to an older, frightening imagery of female abundance (Chernin xiv)."
Recognising that the present ideal of slenderness has not always been the case at all times or in all cultures is the beginning of a new definition of our bodies. For centuries, women have shaped their bodies in accordance with men's needs and desires. Our lives have been immobilised in the process. In order to combat the pervasive effects of advertising on women's body images in our male-centred culture, our self-definition is essential. We must reinvent our bodies in a way that does not limit them.
