Female objectification in video games

The first video I watched of Anita Sarkeesian detailed the "damsel in distress" trope that many video games have adopted. Their hero, almost always male, has to rescue some poor, often sexualized woman who is in some sort of predicament that she cannot solve on her own. Anita makes the argument that this representation is detrimental to women in society because it makes us out to be helpless, and plays into the archaic idea that women are the "weaker sex". It makes men out to be strong and indestructible. This is bad for both men and women in real life because it reduces women to a lot less than they are worth, while also making men who may not be identified as "strong" feel emasculated. They perpetuate this idea that women can never solve their own problems or be independent, and men are only good for rescuing women. This trope also makes women out to be objects, because generally they are wearing provocative outfits, and have the stereotypical large breasts and long legs that are seen as attractive on a female body. The second video I watched from her was a lot more disturbing. It detailed the violence put against women in many popular games such as Grand Theft Auto, where women are usually sexually or physically assaulted to add to the "realistically" of the video game. In many games, women are brutally raped, killed, or beaten in front of the protagonist of the game, to serve as some sort of misogynistic setting. Young men are psychologically normalizing these events against women, which is a huge problem in society, because these acts are seen as normal or even good. This feeds to the rape culture that is already a problem. Sarkeesian throws out the statistic that 1 in 5 women in the United States will be raped or sexually assaulted in her life time, and the portrayal of rape in these video games makes a mockery of what actual survivors have to go through. The video game industry needs to look into changing their portrayal of women, because it is bad for everyone.