What you probably already know: Video gaming has historically been seen as a male-dominated hobby and profession, but that is an outdated stereotype. The number of women who identify as gamers has been on a steady rise since the 1980s. As of 2025, 48% of gamers worldwide are women. However, if you were to look at mainstream video games, you’d never know. Online gaming site Solitaired analyzed major titles released between 1985 and 2022 and found that only nine out of the 150 they reviewed had a female lead. That’s just 6%, and a stark contrast to the player base. To add insult to injury, female characters that are included tend to be hypersexualized.
Why it matters: The video game industry is worth approximately $455 billion and boasts some of the most influential media today. Approximately 3.32 billion people actively play video games worldwide. With women being both underrepresented and objectified, this can set cultural zeitgeist, with rippling effects politically and socially for upcoming generations. Studies have found that younger boys and girls “developed increased self-objectification when playing with sexualized avatars compared to nonsexualized ones. Virtual portrayals of female characters in adult-only games trigger a sexually objectifying gaze in both male and female participants when exposed to them.” In short: sexualizing women in video games dehumanizes them not just digitally, but in real life, too. In Japan, for instance, nearly 58% of the population plays video games regularly, with women characters being primarily showcased in sexualized and subservient roles.
What it means: As with most systems lacking representation, the root cause starts at the top. What we see reflected in the final product — women characters who cater to the male gaze and are primarily reserved to subservient roles — is directly correlated to the lack of women in leadership positions within the video game industry. One analysis more than 60 gaming companies found women only made up 5% of top executives. Only 12% of top leaders come from racially diverse backgrounds.
What happens next: The industry is at a crossroads. Video games were previously considered the domain of men, but 91% of female internet users between the ages of 16 and 24 play video games on any device, about the same number of males. From 2016 to 2020, the amount of female playable characters rose from just 2% to 18%. Those characters were less sexualized than their predecessors and had more three-dimensional story arcs. A shift is happening, but it’s just the beginning. The industry must recruit more women to leadership positions and actively shift the culture to one that leads to an inclusive environment.
