Thursday, March 24, 2016

Gaming's Sexual Harassment Problem

Today I came upon this article and felt that it brought about a new and different aspect of a topic that we discussed this week: gaming.  As we talked about in class, the sexual objectification of women and the minute yet offensive roles they play in video games is disturbing and creates problems with attitudes and behaviors in men.  Dill et. al's study indicated that men "exposed to stereotypical content made judgements that were more tolerant of a real-life instance of sexual harassment compared to controls" (pg. 1402).  These judgements and behaviors are closer than we thought.  This article addresses the sexual harassment that female gamers face WHILE playing online versus other gamers.



The video game industry relies on their online platform that allows for players to talk to one another while playing the video game.  According to this article, women are not disturbed by the sheer competition and "trash talk" that happens while playing.  However, what does bother them is when the verbal abuse "stops focusing on women as players and targets them simply because of their gender."  The sexual harassment over gaming came in many forms such as intentionally sexist comments, jokes about rape, threats or being asked for sexual favors.



Because of this apparent abuse, women are pleading for the gaming industry to take a stance against this.  Some may argue that gaming is mostly for men and that this concern is far and few in between.  However, the article clarifies that many women do play video games, but decide to mask their identity as to avoid this sexual harassment.  By neglecting this harassment, the gaming industry is virtually (no pun intended) telling women that they are less important members of society.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/24/gaming-will-always-be-for-men-until-the-industry-addresses-its-sexual-harassment-problem/#gref

 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, 44(5), 1402-1408. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.06.002 
Posted by at
Labels:

1 comment:

  1. UnknownApril 14, 2016 at 7:22 AM

    This is a really interesting point. One thing that I wonder is what happened first: the hyper-sexualization of women in advertisements and characters in video games or this idea of women not being gamers.
    Another thing to consider is that if women act/dress the same way in real life as they are portrayed in video games it is seen as obscene and inappropriate. If every girl walked around in short shorts and bra tops all the time they would be called a slut or some other derogatory term. So why does the gaming industry find it acceptable to represent women in this way virtually when the same people wouldn't find it to be socially acceptable in the real world? After all, isn't one of the main factors of certain gaming consoles how realistic their graphics are? And going off of this, how might the increased presence of virtual reality, a type of gaming made to create a more realistic experience for the gamer, affect the present situation if women are continued to be represented in this manner?

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)