A very interesting and shocking NY Times article explores this in detail, but I'll summarize:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/us/sexual-harassment-in-online-gaming-stirs-anger.html
The article first details the experience of a female gamer named Miranda Pakozdi who was training for a video gaming tournament, and she was the only woman on her team. Her own coach started to sexually harass her by asking what her bra size is and taunting her by getting close to her and repeatedly smelling her. Pakozdi had to drop out of the tournament.
In May, a campaign was started by a woman named Anita Sarkeesian to document the portrayal of women in video games, and she received a barrage of hateful comments and violent threats. Someone even made an internet game where you can punch Sarkeesian's face, making it turn bloody and black-and-blue.
More generally, sexual threats and propositions are common for female gamers, for many men see gaming as male territory and women as mere distractions or attention-seekers.
Female gamers have even started their own blog http://fatuglyorslutty.com/ in which women post the sexist messages they receive from other gamers. Its name derives from the tendency for people to call them "fat," "ugly," or "slutty." Some examples of messages that were posted on the blog are: "go back to the kitchen slut," "bitches shouldn't play mw3 because your fuck horrible," and "I just watched you play Halo 4... and your CHEST is awesome! Nice Halo play too."
I thought this article was interesting and relevant because video gaming is an important form of media that we haven't talked about yet -- one that is classically male-dominated but is witnessing a growing number of female gamers. The violent sexism reveals the unease of men who feel like other people are invading their territory, as if the world of online gaming belongs to heterosexual men, and to heterosexual men only.
The comments I wrote down above (that were on the fatuglyorslutty.com blog) show how even in the gaming world, women are solely valued for their appearance and are objectified by men. Their value is only seen so far as they are working in the home or kitchen, but God forbid they do something so manly as play video games! This is consistent with the heterosexual scripts outlined by Kim et. al (2007), where women are treated as sexual objects, and men are obsessed with sex and can't stop thinking about sex. This male script is evidenced by the high number of incidents where male gamers send sexually harassing messages to female gamers, in which they call attention to female appearances and body parts.
More generally, I was happy to see this article in the NY Times, because that shows that these issues are being taken seriously. Last time I checked, there were about 300 responses to the article. Many of the responses were from male gamers, and many of these responses lambasted the article for shedding a negative light on the gaming community. Many guys had the same response: "Well, that's just the way the gaming community is. If you can't handle it then don't play."
What do you guys think about that defense? Is it defensible to say that the sexually antagonizing behavior is okay because that's how the gaming community operates?
As a active gamer (when I have time) I disagree that this is just the culture of gaming. I always felt that gaming should be competitive but never should be taken to the extreme such as the article. I have friends who play Modern Warfare and they have all heard some pretty nasty comments from other gamers but to attack someone for something such as race or sex is completely uncalled for in competition. There should only be critiques of the person's skills if any comments are going to be made.
ReplyDeleteI feel bad for women who have to go through this knowing that they just aspire to either just play games or be the best possible gamer they can be. The other sad part is that there is an element of what a typical female gamer looks like. They are assumed to be unattractive because they spend their time doing a "masculine" activity.
As far as the sexual harassment part of the story goes, there is no excuse for what happened but it does play into the Ferguson et al. (2005) study when it talked about forms of harassment coming from people that you know or are close to you. By her joining the team he probably felt that this behavior was ok because in a way she was "one of the guys." However, that does not offer an invitation to behave in a way that may make other of the opposite sex feel uncomfortable.
Despite the fact that gaming is a heavily male dominated activity and the harassment issue of this article, I strongly encourage women to play video games. I feel that they teach lessons similar to sport with creating goals, sportsmanship, and teamwork. Those three things are important in life and however people are able to learn these things are important and gaming is just another way to gain a new appreciation for those things.