Week 9 - Essay - Gaming, sexism and abuse toward women within the gaming community: a societal shift toward progressive equality

Gaming, sexism and abuse toward women within the gaming community: a societal shift toward progressive equality

Name: Dustin Kochen

Student Number: S5006765

Class Name: 1501HUMNew Communication Technology

Tutor: Ben Ebelebe

Time: Monday, 1:00pm

Word Count: 1488

Video games are rapidly becoming one of the most popular forms of media around the world, experiencing massive growth year after year, and surpassing global film and television industries with the primary market focused in Asia and America. This growth coincides for a worldwide market of over $67 billion. The increase of gaming has flourished specifically in the last twenty five years or so, with gaming moving away from a two-dimension platform to a three-dimension platform, and becoming more and more lifelike with each passing year, creating a more interactive and immersive experience, with in depth imagery and soundtracks specifically designed for games (Taylor, et al., 2009).

Traditionally, original video games only allowed for co-located individuals hardwired to a singular device to share the same virtual experience together. With the progression of technology and the internet, there has also been a steady increase in MMO’s (massive multi-player online games); allowing millions of people to virtually connect simultaneously and play the same game together. MMOs provide a platform for players to immerse themselves in same game simultaneously from a virtual space, and not need to be in the same immediate space to play the same game (Dill, et al., 2008).

This ability to play virtually has created a space for virtual anonymity, and has important implications for how communication transpires. In many cases, this space facilitates harassment and other forms of negative interaction between gamers. Despite the fact that women play games nearly at the rate equal to men, and in some cases even invest more time in games than men, the industry and market is heavily driven and directed toward men  (Fox & Tang, 2014).

The gaming industry traditionally has been dominated by males and male-driven characters and games (i.e. sports, shooting games, fighting games etc.); with men in these games being portrayed as a role model: however many times the characteristics do not match the traditional role model characteristics. Men tend to be characterized as aggressive, quick to anger, forceful, dominant, and in traditional heroic portrayals; whereas women only holding a traditional role of being overtly sexualised, emotional, submissive, warm, scantily clad, helpless and sensitive (Dill & Thill, 2007).

This leads to gender schema theory, which depicts that highly stereotypical portrayals of women in gaming may attempt to facilitate in the development and activation of negative schemata, which in turn can prime negative attitudes toward women in men, as well as a decrease in self-esteem in women (Kowert, et al., 2012). There is a myriad of sexualized and objectified representations of women in society, with negative effects being scouted amongst various platforms: television shows, movies, magazines and advertisements; with video games portraying a consistent negative and degrading portrayals of women, causing a behavioural dialogue allowing both male and female gamers to become more hostile and aggressive toward women (Fox & Bailenson, 2009)

There is extensive research into gender in videogames, specifically stereotypical portrayals of women and men in games, with stereotyped representation of gender contributing to misleading gender identities and expectations for violence, sexual appeal and beauty. Gender roles are not excluded from gaming, where for an extended period of time women in gaming were portrayed as ‘damsels in distress’ and ‘bikini babes’ – that pervade video gaming and alienate women who may enjoy gaming. Furthermore, as the market is predominantly male driven, there are less games available with a strong female lead; as well as the ones with strong female leads are either sexualized or controlled by men (Soukup, 2007). 

Agents and avatars in the virtual space take the form of virtual humans with realistic features mimicking human form, with users often inferring sex, age, race and personality traits from human-like representation as they would if they were meeting another person. Through this there is virtual interaction just as life-like conversations and interactions, interactions can also lead to sexualized virtual representations; with both short-term and long-term effects of sexualized depictions in virtual environments. 

Virtual words and video games provide the opportunity for an experience beyond exposure to still images, with individuals tending to embody avatars (virtual beings designed by the creator to be played within a virtual universe) by controlling their movements and interactions (Kuznekoff & Rose, 2012). Due to this process, embodiment of these avatars can create hyper-sexualized avatars, which in turn can cause the Proteus effect. The Proteus effect is one whereby people (and specifically gamers) often infer and embody their attitudes and beliefs into a virtual avatar, and becoming one with this avatar whilst playing it. Once this embodiment occurs, the players’ behaviour can conform to the virtual representation of themselves, with the more attractive the avatar, the more prone the individual is in disclosing more real life private and personal information. If female gamers embody sexualized avatars, it is common for women to portray hyper-sexualized features (large breasts, skimpy clothing, thin waist, thin legs etc.). By creating such avatars as women, some argue that it infers that their belief and attitudes support the over sexualisation and objectification of women, causing potentially irreversible damage by objectification and the rape myth acceptance, which is prevalent amongst gamers (Fox, et al., 2013).

Research has also drawn attention to the relationship between video games and violence, with those who play first-person shooters exhibiting evidence of hostile expectations and a higher level of verbal aggression toward women (Dill, et al., 2008). This can be potentially dangerous particularly on an anonymous virtual platform which many gamers are able to mask their identities online or through online avatars, increasing sexual harassment and verbal abuse within the gaming community (Fox & Tang, 2014). As players are exposed to this misrepresentation, there may be a skewed belief and view on how players view and communicate with one another, particularly with female players. As interactivity and online connectability increases each year with technology and gaming, women are continuously and meticulously singled out within a virtual environment and within a shared virtual environment (SVE’s) (Kuznekoff & Rose, 2012). Within these SVE’s there tends to be an overtly hostile virtual environment toward women, which there tends  to be a direct correlation between gaming portrayals and gender discrimination within gaming – and therefore reinforcing negative stereotypes within games (Salter & Blodgett, 2012). In recent times there has been a tirade of abuse toward women online, specifically a gamer named Zoe Quinn, causing an international gaming scandal known as GamerGate. This was covered extensively across various media platforms including ABC America. Many outspoken women in the gaming industry such as Anita Sarkeesian have also been sexually and verbally abused online, with harassment so prevalent she feared for her own life, health, and bomb threats at public speaking events (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAyncf3DBUQ ). Women on average tend to receive over three times more abuse than their male counterparts, ranging from general sexual harassment to traditional sexism (Kowert, et al., 2012).

Given the growing adoption of videogames in both male and female audiences, it is important to continue to investigate the many virtual areas of interaction and communication, and to monitor hypermasculinity and the overt sexualisation of women, and find effective ways to counteract verbal aggression in video games, in order to create a more pleasant communicative environment – where participants are not singled out and targeted or for harassment on account of age, sex or race (Schott & Horrell, 2000).  Furthermore, women can become proactive online in not just their verbal actions, but ensuring that they have positive and realistic female traits to further elicit positive change in attitudes and self-image. Through positive interactions, avatars and an industry shift toward positive images of women and communication channels.

With people spending more time in virtual words, from video games to social worlds, chat rooms and forum websites, the need for studying virtual words has increased in the last decade. Both men and women are progressively changing their sexist attitudes, after encounters with gender-stereotypical virtual females. Although there has been a detailed history regarding the copious amounts of previous sexual and verbal abuse toward women, the gaming industry as a whole is endeavouring to become a more inclusive group, with the increase of female gamers steadily increasing year by year. Furthermore, there are more games being developed targeting female gamers, and more and more games being pushed to produce gender stereotypes, specifically virtual MMOs and adventure games. With a conscientious eye, and many gamers becoming more aware of the real-world implications of negative stereotypes and the hindrance of inequality toward women  (Fox & Bailenson, 2009). This year, there are new and interactive games that are incorporating women into them, such as FIFA 2016 and NBA 2k16; providing a small step in the right direction for millions of gamers worldwide, due to not just a shift in gaming, but also due to a gradual societal shift toward gender equality and positive imagery (Salter & Blodgett, 2012). This is in large part due to the positive action of feminist gamers and those that are passionate about creating positive imagery for women and creating an even and equal playing field for future gamers and, in turn, society as a whole.

References

Dill, K. E., Brown, B. P. & Collins, M. A., 2008. Effects of exposure to sex-stereotyped video game characters on tolerance of sexual harassment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 44, pp. 1402-1408.

Dill, K. E. & Thill, K. P., 2007. Video Game Characters and the Socialization of Gender Roles: Young Peopl's Perceptions Mirror Sexist Media Depictions. Sex Roles, Volume 57, pp. 851-864.

Fox, J. & Bailenson, J. N., 2009. Virtual Virgins and Vamps: The Effects of Exposure to Female Charcters' Sexualized Appearance and Gaze in an Immersive Virtual Environment. Sex Roles, Volume 61, pp. 147-157.

Fox, J., Bailenson, J. N. & Tricase, L., 2013. The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: the Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars. Computers in Human Behaviour, Volume 29, pp. 930-938.

Fox, J. & Tang, W. Y., 2014. Sexism in online video games: The role of conformity to masculine norms and social dominance orientation. Computers in Human Behaviour, Volume 33, pp. 314-320.

Kowert, R., Griffiths, M. D. & Oldmeadow, J. A., 2012. Geek or Chic? Emerging Stereotypes of Online Gamers. Bulletin of Science, 32(6), pp. 471-479.

Kuznekoff, J. H. & Rose, L. M., 2012. Communication in multiplayer gaming: Examining player responses to gender cues. new media & society, 15(4), pp. 541-556.

Salter, A. & Blodgett, B., 2012. Hypermasculinity & Dickwolves: The Contentious Role of Women in the New Gaming Public. Journal of Broadcasting & Electric Media, 56(3), pp. 401-416.

Schott, G. R. & Horrell, K. R., 2000. Girl Gamers and their Relationship with the Gaming Culture. Convergence, 6(4), pp. 36-52.

Soukup, C., 2007. Mastering the Game: Gender and the Entelechial Moticational System of Video Games. Women's Studies in Communication, 30(2), pp. 157-178.

Taylor, N., Jenson, J. & de Castell, S., 2009. Cheerleaders / booth babes / Halo hoes: pro-gaming, gender and jobs for the boys. Digital Creativity, 20(4), pp. 239-252.