Monica Long

Erin Rogers
Writing 1020

No Girls Allowed
Rhetorical Analysis
The article, No Girls Allowed, written by Tracey Lien is essentially an article that
discusses the major gender-bias throughout the video game industry. She looks to point out the
prevalent male consumerism of video games as well the majority-male domination of the
creation of video games. Upon reviewing the article, I was able to identify three major writing
strategies Lien used in order to effectively communicate the segregation of women within this
industry. The three strategies, which are also called rhetoric devices, include ethos, pathos, and
logos. Ethos is essentially in regards to establishing the credibility of the presenter, whom in this
case would be Tracy Lien, and is utilized to convince the audience that the presenter is qualified
to discuss the subject. Pathos is primarily in regards to targeting the audience emotionally, and
logos is primarily about logical reasoning through facts and figures to help support the writers
claims. All three of these are prevalent throughout the article, in which multiple instances can be
clearly analyzed as having these strategies being used.
Liens use of pathos is visible in the introduction as the writing specializes in eliciting an
emotional reaction from the reader. By implementing pathos, Lien creates a connection with the
reader right from the beginning by touching on their childhood memories through descriptions of
a toy store from a childs perspective. Lien evokes a readers own memories of being a child in a
toy store, in which the contrast of a pink girls section of toys is segregated from a boys section
in a readers memory. Once this connection is made, Lien presents feelings of outrage by the

sexual discrimination evidenced by toy and video game companies by emphasizing the
differences in the types of products sold to both genders; this is especially evident when its
emphasized that the video game section has a drastic ratio of more video games for boys than
girls.
The use of pathos is also present in the portion of the article when Lien describes how
marketing prior to the 90s is utilized to target male audiences through sex appeal, depicting
sexual imagery of women such as the cover of the game Barbarian and the ad for Battlecruiser.
By pointing out these marketing tactics, Lien is able to draw out emotional objections from her
female readers whod feel offense hearing that women are portrayed in a sexually demeaning
fashion. For example, in Barbarian, the cover shows a woman wearing revealing clothing at the
feet of a man, while the ad for Battlecruiser also uses sex appeal by depicting an attractive
blonde woman wearing just her underwear and seductively placing one finger in her mouth while
the caption states, She really wants it.
The next rhetoric device used is ethos, in which the introduction with the little girl Riley
Maida is cited; essentially, Riley Maidas rant was captured and shared on the internet and
became a viral phenomenon. By referencing Riley Maida, the author established a clear image in
the readers mind demonstrating the gender segregation that children are filtered through, thus
begun the process of clearing any doubts in the readers mind regarding the authors credibility
in the next sections to follow. The author, Lien, also established confidence in the readers mind
by using several examples of forms of marketing used to target specific audiences, hence giving
more credibility to her claims involving the gender biased marketing used in the video game
industry. Although she is not an expert on the subject of marketing, she establishes that shes
highly educated on the topic and cites numerous examples to support her claim that the video

game industry has a clear goal in mind for marketing towards males specifically. Lien herself is
not an expert on the topic of marketing, she references many instances in which Rodger Roeser,
president of marketing firm the Risen Agency, makes it clear that marketing is essential for
business success, especially when it is mentioned, Knowing that you have limited funding, you
can't just market shotgun. You can't just go after anybody. You need to have a very clearly
differentiated and specific brand because that's going to play into where you're running your ads
and what kind of ads you run. That niche-ing, that targeting makes it easier for marketers to have
a very succinct conversation with their target without overspending and trying to reach
everybody." (Lien, 2013)
Furthermore, Lien establishes her knowledge of the history of the video game industry to
add to her credibility in being knowledgeable about the subject. She starts from the beginning of
the video game industry in which there is no gender-bias towards how video games were being
presented to the public; she presents a verifiable example of the game Millipede (1982) showing
a mother and daughter being excited about playing the game. Other examples are presented as
well such as Pac-Man. Throughout the remainder of the article, Lien cites other examples of
gender-neutral games such as Bejewled, Angry Birds, and Myst, which gives her additional
credibility by seeming unbiased towards the gaming industry in general.
Last, the logos strategy is implemented by discussing the origins of video games and
rationalizing the gender biased marketing used by video game companies. Logos is clearly
demonstrated during the last half of the article, in which a timeline of events is established with
verifiable facts are listed including the precursor video games such as Pong being released in
1972, the emergence of Nintendo and its involvement with reviving the video game industry, and
the amount of revenue video game companies were generating annually and losing by 1983.

Based on the data that is presented by Lien, it would appear that one of the overall objectives she
had was justifying that, by marketing towards a specific gender audience, video games were able
to survive past the video game depression and are now available in the present.
To further establish Liens belief that video games are largely gender-biased, she makes
several references to the first-person shooters that rose in the early 90s. Lien herself isnt an
expert on the field of video game productions, however she quotes Brenda Romero, a developer
since the 80s in which she states, "I've always known there were some games and genres that
attracted a heavier male audience than others, like shooters for instance. With the popularity of
shooters, maybe we say, 'Well, men play shooters and then shooters are the most popular game,'
then we can take this logical leap to say 'Men play video games, it's predominantly men." (Lien,
2013). This further supports the data presented prior in which Lien notes that in 2012 first-person
shooters, along with action games and sports games made up approximately 59% of the total
video games sold in North America; all of which are largely considered to be popular amongst
boys.
In conclusion, the author was able to more effectively communicate her ideas and
perspective regarding the gender-biased marketing tactics used by the video game industry by
using the three rhetoric devices, ethos, pathos, and logos. By utilizing these three rhetoric writing
devices, Lien was able to more effectively provide to the readers an analytical presentation
demonstrating how marketing takes gender into consideration. She was able to engage readers by
making an emotional connection through pathos, then by utilizing ethos and logos she was able
to establish credibility and provide the data that supplied her thesis in that the video game
industry markets towards specific gender target audiences for the video games they release.

Citations:
Lien, T. (2013, December 02). No girls allowed. Retrieved February 15, 2016, from
http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed