First, as James Paul Gee points out, the portrayal of women in these games is very similar to many other facets of media-- far too many buxom babes with skimpy outfits exploited to attract male audiences. Even with companies targeting female audiences nowadays, the market is still dominated by male adolescents and twenty-somethings, and as such women are unfortunately treated as sex objects in a lot of games (and movies, tv, etc.). I guess I can't fault those who struggle to see video games as a serious medium when they look at titles like the Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball series, a spinoff from the fighting game that features scantily clad women playing volleyball. Don't let the premise of volleyball fool you, the game is just to show off digital cleavage-- just look at this mini game called "Butt Battle" from DOA Xtreme 2 and try to explain what revolutionary gameplay this is trying to introduce aside from introducing a rear end as a viable weapon (and besides, Wario showed us this years ago). But in the same token, there are a lot of books and films out nowadays that academics scorn, works that are not worth analyzing whatsoever. The same can be said for games in an English classroom setting; there has to be an academic standard of sorts in that there must be a semblance of plot and character, and an interesting gameplay dynamic should be incorporated at all so that the students are not passively watching the narrative, but engaging in it.
Another bad stereotype of women in video games is the woman as a damsel in distress type. How many times has Princess Peach gotten kidnapped? Can she, a princess who lives in an enormous castle, really not afford some %*#*$ real guards aside from pathetic little mushroom men to stop a gigantic monster? Granted, Super Princess Peach pulls the old role reversal, and allows her to be the heroine who must rescue Mario for a change, but this is just one of earliest culprits in a long line of archetypal females who are weak, powerless and need rescue. In all seriousness, the change to include more and stronger female progtagonists is a painstakingly slow one, but some of the strongest in video games have been females like Lara Croft, Samus Aran, and Jill Valentine from Resident Evil.
With all this negative portrayal of women in games, what games are even out there for girls? What games do they play? Why would they even want to play at this point if their gender is marginalized so bad? Cue Tilo Hartmann and Cristoph Klimmt's study on Gender and Video Games, where they examined the likes and dislikes of German females when it comes to elements of these games. To sum up their findings, or in other words to not do justice to the extensive amount of research they conducted and just go to the conclusion, females prefer social interaction, both with game characters and other players, over competition and violence. They also heavily value identification with positive female role models within the games. That being said, let's take a look at the graph the two professors have compiled, which shows on a rating from 1-5, which genres males and females said they played most frequently:
Is it appropriate to let out a victory cry seeing Role-playing games atop the preferred list of genres for girls in this study? It should not come as a surprise, I suppose, as there are several strong female protagonists who defy the stereotypes of being overly sexualized or powerless. Looking at the Final Fantasy series alone, women like Terra and Celes from FFIII, Yuna in FFX, and Ashe in FFXII. These women are all physically and mentally tough, don't dress like strippers or have gravity-defying physiques, and each has her own respective character arc that allows her to develop over the course of her respective journey. World of Warcraft is another example, where female gamers are able to customize their own female character (or male if they so desired), and can then go online and interact with both the game characters, as well as the millions of other players online. Having been addicted to World of Warcraft to the point of going and working for the company for a brief stint, I can attest to the fact that there are a lot of proud female WoW players out there, as there should be.
I don't mean to disregard the "Peaceful build-up" or "Adventure" genres, I will need to take a look and see what titles may be applicable to my thesis. As far as women gamers go, look at the explosion on Facebook that Farmville caused. It was a peaceful build-up title, a very casual game that you could pop in and out of, and it had both males and females hooked across the board. Same for Animal Crossing and The Sims, females embraced these interactive games that were completely devoid of female stereotyping and competition, and both have produced numerous sequels that continue to sell with the female audience.
In closing, it would be best to come up with a response to "how will I get girls interested in these games?" at this point. I think it would involve sticking to the genres that both genders can enjoy rather than catering to just one. In an Adolescent Literature course, the curriculum should be selected based on what books relate best to teens and which ones would promote literacy, so the same must be done for video games. I don't think the issue is in trying to get all girls interested in games, because if they aren't interested, or if a male student isn't interested for that matter, they simply may not do the work. This is no different from a student that hates reading, and refuses to do an assignment. Instead, I think the main issue is selecting titles that will keep students interested, titles that are worthy of analysis, and titles that will promote literacy and learning. If these three aspects of the curriculum are met, then I think adolescents, both male and female, will be interested.
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