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[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Ok, I wanted to make a more descriptive title but it would have been too long.  This thread is about something I just realized when I woke up this morning and then tried and failed to fall asleep again because it was too early.

Video-game portrayals of modern military forces, at supposedly realistic ones, are always exclusively male.  Any time I've actually seen female soldiers portrayed it is done in an intentionally unrealistic and sexualized manner.  Games that seem be trying to portray things is a (semi) realistic manner do so without portraying female soldiers at all.

So yeah...  I'm not really heading towards some point with this.  It's just something I realized which I've never seen mentioned before.

[Asheron]

Well, there are women in the army but the ratio women:men is just very small. The media tends to not portray them realistically because they don't fit into the general role system ( the same reason why you rarely see truck drivers and politicians as women, though this seems to be changing lately ).

[Cthulhu]

The helicopter pilot in Call of Duty 4 was female, and while you did have to carry her to safety, she wasn't in an overly sexualized role.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Didn't know about that, but that brings up another interesting point.  The female pilot.  She's everywhere isn't she?  What's up with that?  Did it start with Aliens?

It's kind of funny... Halo 2 should really be a pillar of the feminist movement as one of the few games (the only one I can think of) that portrayed female soldiers in something other than a purely sexualized manner.  For such a mediocre game that's a rather big achievement.

EDIT: Well, not so much achievement as surprisingly unique aspect.

[Virex]

Didn't know about that, but that brings up another interesting point.  The female pilot.  She's everywhere isn't she?  What's up with that?  Did it start with Aliens?

Probably has something to do with the fact that women seem to make better pilots then men.

[codezero]

there's xcom

[DJ]

I think it has more to do with the fact that they make worse infantry than they make better pilots. In fact, I seriously doubt that women are any better at piloting.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Heh, I'd assumed it was a way for game developers to put a female character in the game in a non-combat role so that they wouldn't alienate anyone.

[DJ]

I wouldn't exactly say that pilot is a non-combat role.

[Granite26]

look... if you're going to go to the trouble to put a chick into media dominated by pre-pubescent boys, why would you then waste the opportunity to sex them up?

On a more serious note, consider the needs of the story.  Females are rare in the military, so once you fill out your cast of core story roles, there's not much room for 'generic chick in the army'  Hence all the females are sexualized into their story roles.  This also goes a good distance to explaining the pilots.

Check the Starship Troopers book.  I imagine it's a good source.

Finally:
Most military games are either JRPGs with all their prejudices built in, WWII games where there weren't females, or else futuristic space marine games where you are the lone hero. 

Check Mass Effect though... Half it's cast is female.

[Aqizzar]

As I recall, the female dropship pilot trope (prevalent in Halo too) actually goes all the way back to Starship Troopers, where Heinlein made kind of a big deal of the semi-gender integrated military of the 22nd century (or whatever it was).

The no-female-combat-soldiers thing is still realistic.  The American military is one of few forces that lets women serve in weapon carrying roles at all, and they're specifically forbidden from being sent on combat oriented ground missions (obviously ambushes don't count).

Fucking Ninja'd.  Stop posting so fast.

[Okenido]

look... if you're going to go to the trouble to put a chick into media dominated by pre-pubescent boys, why would you then waste the opportunity to sex them up?

I believe it's dominated by males of the age of 30...

[Granite26]

I wouldn't exactly say that pilot is a non-combat role.

According to the US military it is.

Also, females are shorter and weigh less.  Both plusses for pilots.  (There's a few other general attributes that are plusses)

[DJ]

Wait, blasting tanks with an Apache and dodging stingers doesn't count as combat? US military is weird.

[Sowelu]

Didn't Heinlein's SST claim that (in his world anyway) their slightly faster reaction times made them absolutely essential as pilots?

Also...Uh, what have I seen in recent games...Whats-her-name in Metal Gear Solid 4 in FOXHOUND.  I never played the earlier games, which she was probably in, but she seems to fit "badass elite soldier" without being sexualized, um, at all pretty much.