Three Shadowed Dimensions of Feminine Presence in Video Games

The paper "Three Shadowed Dimensions of Feminine Presence in Video Games" argues that scholarly and critical attention to women in games has concentrated narrowly on sexist portrayals and the action-heroine archetype, exemplified by Lara Croft, leaving other forms of feminine presence underexplored. Its central thesis is that three neglected analytical axes deserve attention: aging, the contrast between protagonist-focused and world-focused perception, and feminine sociability. These axes are illustrated through close readings of The Walking Dead, The Path, and 80 Days, games that the authors note receive scholarly praise for creativity or ideology but rarely for their gender representation, with The Walking Dead as a notable exception.

The aging dimension draws on what the authors call the "Adventurous Alice" trope, examining child and older women characters who are typically marginalized in favor of youthful protagonists. The focus dimension considers the depth and variety of ancillary female characters, particularly in 80 Days, where women populate the broader world beyond the player's avatar. The sociability dimension, adapted from the Bechdel-Wallace test, asks whether women interact meaningfully with one another rather than only in relation to men.

To support the case for sociability as a critical lens, the paper cites Mičić's (2015) finding that female-to-female interaction constitutes only about 4 percent of same-sex interaction time in top-grossing films, alongside Nixon's (2013) adaptation of the Bechdel test to games. The paper itself offers no original quantitative data; its contribution is conceptual, intended as a framework for future empirical study. Its scope is accordingly theoretical and focused on a small set of commercially and critically visible titles.