*CONTENT WARNING: THIS STORY MENTIONS SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND RACIST, FOUL LANGUAGE*
Nothing beats playing video games to kill time, but when it comes to playing online, that’s when the fun swirls down the drain. Or, this is at least what happens largely in the experiences of women. Gaming has always been predominantly male-oriented, and the surge of “gamer girls” is more prevalent than it was before, as women now represent half of the international gaming demographics in contrast to the 2006 statistics of gamers being 62% male and only 38% female. Generally, video games are socially gendered since brands mostly market them to boys, which in turn, associates gaming with a hypermasculine identity.
Despite the rise of women in gaming, there’s still many issues when it comes to how women are both portrayed in games and how they’re received by male gamers. Oftentimes when women join virtual chats, they’re repeatedly harassed by their male counterparts; the sexism and racism that emanate from these online games is astounding, and it’s one of the main reasons women hesitate to join online games.
I, for one, hesitate to do so for this reason. As a casual player, I tend to avoid playing competitively and even enjoy playing against bots when the option is available. While I enjoy playing competitively with other people, I tend to gravitate toward single-player games where I can go at my own pace. It’s a scary world out there when it comes to interacting with male players, so I don’t really bother to test the waters when I already know there’s plenty of sharks at bay.
For instance, 22-year-old Hannah Bowman shared her experiences of harassment with Triad City Beat, saying that she received a multitude of put-downs for being a woman.
“When you’re a girl, you instantly get sexualized,” she says. “I hate being called a ‘gamer girl.’ I think it’s a negative connotation being called a gamer girl. They think I’m bad at games, and then I feel pressure to actually play well and I feel the need to play good but I don’t necessarily want to be like that. I don’t want unwanted pressure that I didn’t put on myself.”
In another occasion, Sayaka Matsuoka mentioned that during a game, a player recognized her voice as female and figured she was Asian by her gamertag. When he deduced this, he started calling her slurs on top of his sexist comments. So, not only are women constantly sexually harassed and demeaned, women of color have to deal with racist remarks and being fetishized from male players. Experiences like these are the reason why many women enter games with their mics off, as silence and anonymity is the only way they can be accepted by their peers.
At one point, the verbal abuse and harassment got so extreme that a user named BadKen posted a blog titled “Fat, Ugly, or Slutty?” that was meant for women to share screenshots of some the heinous messages they received from male players. The majority of the posts came from the chat functions within the Call of Duty franchise and World of Warcraft, and just for those two specific games, there were tons of posts exposing all of the instances of harassment that women had to put up with. While the blog has been permanently closed and the posts archived, there are still discussion threads attached to an empty site.
“I never realized how bad it was until my girlfriend got into gaming,” BadKen quoted. “She started with L4D on the 360. She would constantly get bombarded with disgusting voice messages and lewd comments. I’ve been playing online games for a long time and never experienced anything close to what she has to deal with. I’m not even talking about comments like ‘lol a gurl, get back in the kitchen,’ I’m talking about extremely vile things.”
To reveal just how toxic it is for women in the gaming world, an experiment was created where men had to use voice changers to make themselves sound female; afterward, they were asked to hop on a game to see how their male peers would react to their presence. And the results? Well, it wasn’t surprising — at least, not for the women who had to watch the experiment unfold.
One of the male participants concluded that he would give up playing online if he had to deal with this kind of harassment constantly, as he even posed the question, “Why do you keep playing?” to which the female viewer replied, “because I love it.” Despite the toxicity of the online gaming community, she refuses to give up what she loves, which is something quite admirable and brave. Major props!
Of course, these issues exist outside of video games, but online gaming has become an easy outlet for men to anonymously spew misogynistic rhetoric without having to face any consequences. It only gets worse when men often incorporate sexist, racist language in their joking banters, which further normalizes and reinforces these repulsive behaviors. It’s a constant abusive cycle when it comes to gaming online, though a way to potentially combat this is to create safer spaces for women interested in gaming. It’s best to be surrounded by like-minded individuals who want to have fun, and this can be done by finding any organizations that share this exact sentiment.
Recently, my roommate and I joined UCSB’s Marginalized Genders in Gaming where we could enjoy gaming without feeling nervous about playing amongst men. At our first meeting, I remember feeling at ease, as everyone was so welcoming and friendly. I especially liked all of the fun ice breaker games we played, especially since the meeting’s theme was Five Nights at Freddy’s (which I’m obsessed with)!
For anyone interested in gaming but afraid of the kind of feedback they’d receive from men, I highly encourage finding people you trust and creating your own gaming space, or even simply joining organizations like the one I’m a part of! Don’t feel too discouraged when it comes to playing online, because as long you’re with the right people, everything should be smooth sailing from there!