Sexism in video gaming is prejudiced behavior or discrimination based on sex or gender as experienced by people who play and create video games, primarily women. This may manifest as sexual harassment or in the way genders are represented in games, such as when characters are presented according to gender-related tropes and stereotypes.
Since the 1980s and 1990s, video game culture has veered from its original perception as a space for just young men. Women make up about 50 percent of all game players as of the 2010s. The growing presence of women in the gaming sphere, and subsequently publicized incidents of harassment towards women in this field, has pushed industry professionals to pay attention to sexism in video gaming.
Harassment Form
Harassment can involve sexist insults or comments, death or rape threats, demanding sexual favors in exchange for virtual or real money, or criticism of the presence of women and their interests. In some cases, female players are also stalked, whether online or offline.
Women are sometimes marginalized as "intruders", as it is assumed they do not play video games that aren't associated with female players such as the Sims, music video games or casual games. Conversely, insults towards men focus mainly on their alleged lack of manliness for playing "girl games" or disliking violent games. As a result, women may face offensive behavior at conventions, competitions or in video games stores. It may affect female gamers, journalists or game developers, even when they are invited to talk at a conference or to present a game. Since the release of the NES, video games advertisements have been accused of strengthening this tendency by targeting only men. In the 1980s, women stopped being represented playing video games in advertisement and scantily clad women started being used on game covers and ads. Some women saw their non-sexualized female character designs rejected, and others reported sexual harassment in the workplace.
In 2014, the International Game Developers Association conducted a survey that demonstrated some of the lack of professionalism women in the game developing field were met with. Firstly, women reported defiance from their subordinate male colleagues. The study also showed that white males were favored for positions of management and all throughout the hiring process. Female developers from the survey also revealed that they were not taken seriously in the field and instead were met with inappropriate behavior from male colleagues, such as being misled into attending dates.
Online video games can be host to extreme sexism towards women, with 65% of women reporting an instance of sexual harassment in this setting. In comparison to their male counterparts, women are subject to three times the amount of derogatory or offensive remarks, which can be made anonymously by gamers.Digitized Lives, T.V. Reed
Video games conferences have been criticised for using sexualised advertising such as 'booth babes', creating a demeaning image of women, and for failing to stop harassment of female attendees. This has led some to adopt or share codes of conduct for managing these issues.
One form of harassment involves perpetrators changing their username to include sexist or racially charged language when they leave comments during live-streams, according to gamer Amira Virgil.
Frequency Insults are frequent in online gaming. According to Stephen Toulouse (moderator of the online gaming service Xbox Live), between 2007 and 2012 women were the most frequent target of harassment. However, data from Riot Games lists racism and homophobia as the top problems. Furthermore, derogatory words for homosexuality are used almost constantly in online gaming.
In 2012, a study of the Ohio University showed that the same person playing Halo 3 online with a male and a female profile using recorded voice messages received three times more negative comments with the female profile, despite similar game scores. Even welcoming everybody at the beginning of a game could lead to sexist insults against the female profile. A 2015 study of Halo 3 player interactions found that less-skilled male players display a tendency to make "frequent, nasty comments" to female gamers. The researchers suggested that the poorly performing males "attempt to disregard a female's performance and suppress her disturbance on the hierarchy to retain their social rank."
In an ethnographic study of Xbox Live, Kishonna Gray wrote that a lot of the racism and sexism experienced in the gaming platform is facilitated by linguistic profiling. Linguistic profiling is comparable to racial profiling or gender profiling, but is based on voice and speech rather than appearance. It is common in gaming spaces that rely on voice communications rather than text. There are certain linguistic stereotypes that may be associated with one's voice, making women more vulnerable to discrimination just based on how they sound.
A study from 2006 showed that 83.4% of gamers had seen the words "gay" or "queer" used as derogatory names, and that 52.7% of gay gamers perceived the gaming community as "somewhat hostile" while 14% perceived it as "very hostile".
According to Lucy Waterlow, there appears to be a deep history of sexual harassment in the video game industry and women who play video games on online forums such as Call of Duty are often told they should "return to the kitchen", along with other slurs. However, the changing demographics that have been seen in the video game community (an increasing proportion of people who play video games are, as it appears, female.), have led to certain consequences. The largest change in terms of who plays video games has been that of gender proportions. This translates to more women playing video games than ever before, "almost reaching parity" with the number of men that play video games. The most visible and immediate ramifications of that have been the resistance of men and even some women within the industry.
Critics have stated that there is an increasing pervasiveness of the sexual harassment of women in the video game community. A study conducted by Kate O'Halloran in 2017 found that women receive an almost amplified amount of harassment in the setting of online video games than they do in real life, whereas preferential treatment is given to men by other men. The difference in the treatment of women further diminishes the desire of women to participate in video games, or, as O'Halloran found, to completely conceal their gender identity and allow other players to assume their gender. Liliana Braumberger, a participant in O'Halloran's study, states that this stems from the fact that the men who engage in this form of sexual harassment have the invisibility and anonymity that comes with participating in an online server, and that men have a certain sense of entitlement that leads to the invisibility of women. She feels that this discrimination and erasure potentially have the same effects on other people who do not identify as men, not necessarily just women.
The #MeToo impact on the video game industry In October 2017 the #MeToo movement highlighted sexual harassment allegations against several important and high-profile figures predominately from the entertainment industry. In response to a growing number of claims of harassment, several important figures in games media or publishing made public statements outlining their thoughts on how more needed to be done within the industry to do better when dealing with harassment including Jennifer MacLean, Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association, and Kate Edwards, the former director, Joe Smedley of Sony Online Entertainment and Mike Wilson of Devolver Digital. The IGDA meanwhile published a public statement criticising "The prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in our community" and demanding "action from every game developer to ensure the safety and support of all of our colleagues and community members. We all must do a better job of welcoming, and protecting, all game developers so that our community, craft, and industry can thrive." While some commentators called for action throughout the industry to call out toxic behaviour, Brianna Wu, who had been one of those targeted during the Gamergate controversy, argued from her experience that the video game industry did not have a system in place to support those women that came forward, thus favoring silence on such matters.
In January 2018 following a public outcry the Game Developers Conference rescinded a Pioneer Award to Nolan Bushnell after revelations about early Atari meetings being held in hot tubs, amongst other claims. While the decision was criticised in some parts, including by some of the leading women at Atari during that period in time, Bushnell himself supported the decision and applauded the GDC "for ensuring that their institution reflects what is right, specifically with regards to how people should be treated in the workplace".
In a January 2018 an opinion piece in The Guardian, journalist Keza McDonald speculated that the video game industry would have a similar "#MeToo moment", but was not currently ready. McDonald highlighted a few instances of action being taken but noted that "there has been no mass movement of women coming forward with their stories of workplace harassment", and suggested that the harassment of individuals associated with #1reasonwhy and #Gamergate deterred women from opening themselves "up to further harassment, victim-blaming, and unpleasant professional ramifications".
In August 2019, following Nathalie Lawhead coming forward with sexual assault accusations against Jeremy Soule, several other women and non-binary people brought additional accusations of sexual assault, harassment, and abuse against members of the industry, including some whose reports had been generally overlooked in the past. A number of industry members established a "Times Up" group to encourage other women to speak up about events in their past. Anita Sarkeesian stated that this may be the expected #MeToo moment for the industry.