Episode 31 of Through the Gates aired via SoundCloud and iTunes Monday, Sept. 26.

This week, Through the Gates host Janae Cummings talks with Jess Tompkins, Media School PhD student and lead intern for the Women Empowering Success in Technology (WESiT) special interest group “Women in Gaming.”

Tompkins describes her life-long enjoyment of video games and the gender politics that manifest in the game design industry and gamer culture. She explains that, in her early years, the sexualization of women in games “seemed normal,” saying, “I was being exposed to sexualized women in advertising, in films, long before I saw sexualized women in games.”

Tompkins also shares some key insights from the recent study, “Sexy, Strong, and Secondary: An Analysis of the Portrayal of Female Video Game Characters from 1983 to 2014.” The episode closes with the Hoosier Five, a short conversation with Carrie Docherty from the School of Public Health and Healthy IU’s Steven Lalevich about IU’s Sleep Walk. The community-building and awareness-raising walk takes place Sept. 27 at noon.

Through the Gates: IU This Week is a collaboration of the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President and The Media School in the College of Arts and Sciences. All episodes are available through SoundCloud and iTunes, or on the Media School website.