Lora Croft

One claim that Mikula makes about gender and video games using Lora Croft is that men and women have different reactions and desires when faced with a female character such as Lora Croft. Men feel that they must protect, care for and control Lora who for them is a sex symbol that they develop a personal "relationship" with. For women they tend to want to identify with her, using Lora Croft as a way for them to access their inner strength, femininity, and fearlessness. The article says that Lora Croft is both heroine and sex symbol, she is what you want her to be and that regardless of gender people developed personal connections to her character. I would agree that men and women would look at a dominant female and have different ways of interacting with such a character. Men, who would be intimidated by someone like Lora Croft, seek to control her and sexualize her, whereas women endeavor to become her and seek to embody her "all in one" personality.