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What Video Games Understand About Men And Women That Modern Culture Doesn’t
This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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God only created two types of people: men and women. We have since segregated into different skin colors, cultures, and countries, but the only difference inherent to creation is biological sex.
Any person can see this. Everyone has known it for all of history — until now. Men and women are not the same. Each sex has different strengths and weaknesses. These inherent traits are complementary to such a strong degree that you might assume God made it that way for a reason.
Since the dawn of time, men and women have worked together to allow the continuation and flourishing of human civilization. If they hadn’t done this, we wouldn’t be here today. This should go without saying, but apparently it must be said.
These truths are antithetical to our leftist-run educational systems, mainstream media, and progressivism. Instead of celebrating femininity and masculinity, liberals promote views and lifestyles that denigrate women, demonize men, and support transgenderism. Don’t believe your lying eyes, they say. There are no differences between men and women, and any differences you perceive are a problem with deep-seated bigotry.
How well is that working out for us? Dr. Jordan B. Peterson put it bluntly, “Men and women aren’t the same. And they won’t be the same.” Pretending it isn’t true reliably produces worse outcomes for everyone.
It is fruitless to try to square liberals’ push for diversity being our strength with their lack of belief in inherent biological differences, but they do try to hold those two beliefs simultaneously. The problem is that they don’t acknowledge the correct core differences that complement each other. They choose to divide people based on man-made, oppression-based hierarchies.
But there are some truths so pervasive that they can’t help but resonate with people in reality.
Video games are largely created and deliberated on by far-left writers and programmers, but many games, in their core structure, whether intentionally or not, support the idea that intrinsic differences and natural skillsets are equally vital, and those differences make everything better.
Anyone who has cleared a raid in World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV or queued into Overwatch or Marvel Rivals has internalized a truth that modern egalitarian discourse often resists: profound difference and profound equality are not opposites but partners. In video games, they are even classified by the term “roles.” The gaming roles making up the “holy trinity” of tank, healer, and damage dealer have been the structural backbone of nearly every cooperative gaming experience for the past quarter-century. They offer what may be the most widely beloved demonstration of complementarian logic in popular culture.
A team composed of identical members fails, while a team composed of different but equally essential members thrives. This reflects how men and women are designed for distinct yet harmoniously interlocking roles.
Every role is required and invaluable. The characters’ worth is preserved because of their different functions, not in spite of them. Whenever designers have tried to flatten the distinctions by giving players abilities that lessen the value of differing roles, players complain that the game feels duller and less alive. When Overwatch 2 gave every tank a “self-heal” ability, players who preferred playing the healing-focused classes felt their importance was being diminished. Final Fantasy XIV received similar criticisms, as changes in that game made support classes feel oversimplified by reducing the need for their classes’ specific abilities. Difference, it turns out, is what makes the game fun.
This is the complementarian vision of marriage in miniature: a husband and wife whose distinct strengths converge on a shared mission, each making the other capable of what neither could do alone.
Critics will object that people aren’t assigned a class at creation, and that game roles are freely chosen, while sex-based roles historically were not. It’s not a perfect analogy, but the intent of the designer is real. The differences are real, and those distinctions complement each other. God wrote them into the fabric of the universe. Each role is irreplaceable, honored, and unique, and that is beautiful.