That's a pretty good point. Violence against women is generally considered worse than violence against men, or at least special. That's probably why normal enemies in video games are almost always male, genderless, or inhuman monsters with female attributes. I don't mean unrealistically large breasts here, I'm mainly thinking of driders and lamias and things. Monstergirls (exotic sex objects).
It's a real problem. I'm having real trouble thinking of games where the waves of human enemies include females. Fallout and The Elder Scrolls pass, there are plenty of female bandits. Any others? I want to say Half Life, but the assassins (in their form-fitting catsuits) only appear, by themselves, in two special arenas - mini boss fights. They were cut entirely from Half Life 2 despite being present in the leaked alpha.
Video games imply that, in armies of thousands, it may be possible for 1-3 women to join. They get special treatment by exclusively being boss fights. They also wear the most irrational, slutty outfits - an implied explanation of why they get to skip to the top of the command structure. (The good guys are allowed to have lots of women, since the entire friendly army exists to support the protagonist).
I guess my point is that all-male cannon fodder does nothing good for gender equality.
However, I have to disagree with your criticism of Anita here...
I just want to caution viewers that as we delve into more modern games we will be discussing examples that employ some particularly gruesome and graphic depictions of violence against women. I’ll do my best to only show what is necessary but this episode does come with a trigger warning. It’s also recommended that parents preview the video first before sharing with younger children.
The video contains a lot of gruesome and violent scenes. Yes, they're against women, but only because the video is about female damsels. She doesn't try to make the point that violence against women is any worse than violence against men. It's the context of the violence: female characters are used, very commonly, as plot devices to cheaply provoke sympathy and establish villainy. Having the player fight female soldiers along with male ones wouldn't be such a plot device, it'd be normal combat.
There are *also* unfortunate implications to all the possessed/manipulated women that have to beaten back to their senses. (It would be just as unfortunate if it happened in reverse, too, like it does in real life. Slapping is a type of physical abuse regardless of gender.) It's really a double whammy:
1) The victim is robbed of all agency, and typically the victim is a woman being psychically or biologically overpowered by a male. Often a seductive female will control a male, yes, but seduction is different than domination.
2) The victim, generally in a romantic relationship with a male protagonist, has to be physically assaulted until she loves him again.
If this happened occasionally then it would just be creativity. The fact that it happens a lot means the symbolism is no coincidence: these video games, taken together, are acting out abusive relationships and putting players in the role of the abuser. Followed by post-violence romance.
Heck, I think the mercy-killing is actually less offensive. In those cases when the victim is asking to be killed, she's deliberately choosing to resist the control at all costs. That's agency, of a sort. So I have to disagree with Anita about Borderlands 2: the heroes, who have no romantic connection to either of the damsels, are helping the damsels *not* be used. The "damsels" in question also do a lot to help the heroes, making it cooperation with actual decision-making characters.