Masculinity and femininity are often associated with gender and physical sex (often confused with the concept of gender) but are more accurately considered the idealized traits of performing or embodying certain gender identities. This comes into focus when we see people playing with the ideas and expectations of gender performance and the clarity of seeing things we can mix and match. For instance, seeing a breadwinner of a family being a woman who wears dresses and wears makeup. This example shows a woman who is physically expressing her gender identity while conceptually embodying a masculine trait of providing for a family.
Though these concepts are very rooted in a Western understanding of culture and gender, it’s a good place to start when understanding media and how some media embodies masculine ideals and some media embodies feminine ideals.
First, let’s define what traits and ideals are masculine and which are feminine. Though these concepts exist in a gender binary that is often called into question, it is still used and accepted by a majority of Western cultures that don’t feel the need to question it.
Often, masculinity contains values such as protectiveness or the ability to protect others and the ability to provide for others and be relied on.
Femininity can contain values such as the desire to nurture and help others grow and to care for those that need emotional support.
This is when the discussion of toxic masculinity often comes into play. What is toxic masculinity? Too often, the phrase itself is attacked as being hypercritical of masculinity itself, but good arguments have been made that toxic masculinity isn’t the performance of masculinity or manhood but the warped desires of masculine ideals. Within toxic masculinity, protectiveness can become possessiveness that leads to abusive relationships.
(What about toxic femininity, you may ask? Though not nearly within as much of the realm of destructive nature as toxic masculinity, there are some concepts that we might ascribe the term “toxic femininity” to, such as emotionally exhausting oneself to support others or emotional manipulation to create situations in which they are relied on emotionally.)*
Back to the concept of masculinity and femininity in media, I’m going to use movies as an example to get started with. Specifically, two genres of film: action packed flicks and romance comedies. These two genres very clearly demonstrate the ability to embody certain characteristics that very obviously appeal to certain groups of people.
Though romcoms are more often chastised as being silly, cliche, and unrealistic, so as are action driven films like The Fast and the Furious. It’s harder to tell how trite action films are as they rely more on constant movement and action, making it harder to critically analyze what’s being presented simply due to the allotted time that you have to sit back and actually consider the movie.
Action heavy genres embody many masculine ideas and ideals just as romcoms embody feminine ideas and ideals. They project strength, protectiveness, the ability to provide, and so on. Though women can enjoy these mindless action flicks too, it’s not too hard to see what concepts they’re embodying and who it mainly appeals to. It’s a fulfillment fantasy just as romcoms are.
So how does this apply to games and game play? Similar to how action flicks are considered a slightly more legitimate genre of movie to romcoms (often because we see things that appeal to women as being pandering to women, whereas things made for men as being accessible for everyone, as a kind of default type of media), action packed games are considered a more legitimate form of game than the romcoms of games, like visual novels, dating sims, farming sims, and so on.
But it’s not enough to just point out that some games appeal more to women and some games appeal more to men (and, of course, the more action packed, masculine coded games are considered the default to the game medium and thus not “pandering” to men) as that has already been discussed. There is more to talk about in why we consider certain forms of game play more legitimate than others and why they might appeal to people, beyond the skill or sport of being able to play certain games well.
There’s an argument in the game community of what games actually are qualified as games that would make their players “gamers” as if it is a prestigious title to only a select few. Some might agree that people that play Dungeons and Dragons are gamers, but many others would say that board games are not the “right kind” of games.
Additionally, why would Minecraft be a more legitimate game than something like The Sims? Both include building, collecting resources, and navigating challenges with their playing character. Yet we see a divide in the style of game play, Minecraft relying more on combat and crafting within hostile environments where The Sims plays with intricate interpersonal relationships and skill systems.
The argument of some mechanics being more “real” than others may disguise itself as complexity. The coding and system that goes into a complex combat system may be mechanically complex, but branching visual novels with extensive and sometimes hidden choices don’t lack complex code or extensive tracking of the various branches and changing values to keep track of minor choices.
If we’re able to identify why we consider some forms of game play more legitimate than others, we can critically look to the actual reasons why we may find satisfaction in some mechanics over others and maybe even seek to merge the two more often. A game like Stardew Valley bridges this masculine and feminine game play divide, providing players with the ability to provide themselves of a family, to protect the townsfolk from the evil Jojo corporation (and the monsters in the cave that never really threaten anyone despite what all the message board ads say), to nurture and help grow your farm, to emotionally connect and support your fellow townsfolk, friends, and life partners, and to help them make choices that can help them grow as people.
Where some games come to mind as having more of a male or female base, Stardew Valley is one of those that often lies somewhere closer in the middle for its audience. Is it because of these specific factors? We don’t know for sure, but it sure is a prime example of merging the positive aspects of both masculinity and femininity.
Video Games Deconstructed 