Gender Stereotypes

“The life you knew before is gone. Today, we fight to bring it back,” says Captain Price, a fictional soldier in the popular violent video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. This game was the most popular selling video game of 2011 in terms of units sold and earned seventh place on the same list only one year later (The Entertainment Software Association, 2012 Essential Facts 9; The Entertainment Software Association, 2013 Essential Facts 9). As an avid player of the Call of Duty series and several other video game titles involving intense and violent action, I can understand and appreciate the appeal of violent media. It is important to note that violent media is not necessarily limited to video games; although there is no commonly agreed

Goldstein argues, “little boys are attracted to violence in the mass media because they learn very early that it is their domain and that it is a way to distinguish themselves from little girls” (100). Another reason for this attraction may be that most violent characters in the media are male and children “pay more attention to same-gender characters and remember more of their activities” (Goldstein 101). Whatever causes the attraction, there is a clear link between males and their preference for media violence. W. Potter offers the suggestion that “people with higher levels of aggression usually seek out higher levels of exposure to aggression” (40). Because men have this naturally higher level of aggression, they will seek more violent media than women will. One research study published in 2008 concluded, “male viewers reported a greater preference for high-arousal films compared to female viewers, and female viewers reported a greater preference for low-arousal films compared to male viewers. This finding was not surprising, given that male viewers are attracted to arousing media […]” (Banerjee, et al. 92). These high-arousal films are they type of films that stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and are quite often violent films with intense action scenes. From my own experience, I can say that I prefer these types of high-arousal, violent films to quieter films that may have less action; for

Surely there is a correlation between viewing media violence and aggressive behavior, especially in males; but is there a causal connection? Those who produce the media violence that we consume would clearly like to make the argument that violent media does not cause increased aggressive behavior. However, this is not necessarily the case. Although one study highlighted by Jonathan Freedman “produced no evidence of any causal connection between any type of exposure [to media violence] and any kind of violent behaviour,” the study “offers no support for the causal hypothesis, but also no evidence against it” (164). The causal hypothesis is still being researched and may indeed have some truth to