It's no big secret: Significant numbers of men and boys behave disgracefully towards women in public online games servers. Women have been arguing, for years, that online games are infested with sexists and creeps.
New research was released recently that serves to illustrate the depth of this problem. The findings, by student and blogger Emily Matthew, reported that among 874 respondents, 60 percent of all female respondents have experienced harassment while playing video games. 79.3 percent of all participants say that sexism is prominent in the games community. 20 percent of women say that they have been followed, post-game, and bothered by a male-player.
I spoke to Emily to find out more about her findings, and why she felt it necessary and important to add some statistical weight to the anecdotal evidence.
Tell me about yourself and why you wanted to do this research.
I'm 24 years old, and I do personally enjoy playing video games. I have been a target of sexual harassment, especially when playing online on public servers with people I don't know. I think that the community recognizes that it's there. But there's never really any sort of empirical data to use when discussing it or arguing against it. I only have anecdotes to describe what's happening to me, and I think people take that less seriously than if you have hard data to support your claims.
What I find when this subject comes up is that people, especially men, will deny that it exists. Looking at some of the comments that you received in the article, they still denied it, even in the face of statistics. What is your reaction to that kind of response?
You know, I think it's funny. There are some comments I received that were very professional in tone, that sort of denied that sexism was a problem, or that it wasn't really happening in the gaming community, but most of the comments that I received of that nature were very sexist in and of themselves. They called me names or made, essentially, rape threats. I think that proves the point that I'm trying to make. It seems odd to me that you would argue against there being sexism in the gaming community by calling me a 'cunt' or a 'slut.'
One argument is that misogyny in online games is an affront not just against women, but against men as well, because it poisons the whole arena. It makes it an unpleasant place to be. Do you think that men also suffer because of this behavior?
I absolutely do think that. They're losing a lot that they might have if they were more cooperative with female gamers. There would be a wider range of people to play with, and in general a better gaming experience.
Is the kind of abuse that you suffered the sort of thing that other other people would hear? Or is it in a one-on-one kind of situation?
Both. Usually it'll start out in a public chat or voice chat, where other people can hear it. But generally, in my experience, if the individual who's trying to get my goat is really trying to push it, then they'll start sending me private messages.
And in your experience, have you found that in a group situation, other men tend to just stay silent, or do they raise objections, or do they join in?
It really depends on who I'm playing with. If I'm playing on a server of complete strangers, then most often the men in the room will either not say anything, or occasionally they will join in and add to the sexist harassment. But if I'm playing with people who I know, that are also with me on a public server, then more often those people will stand up for me and say, 'Hey, that's not appropriate,' as opposed to if I'm just playing with complete strangers.
What I find playing on these servers is that there's a very large amount of young men and they tend to be the ones that are the most obnoxious, generally speaking. Would it be fair to say this kind of abuse is coming from younger men, rather than older men?
You know, I would have made that assumption myself, but in the research it shows that people are using this language up through the age of 39. And it's coming from both men and women at roughly the same rates. So I would say that maybe you see more younger men who are doing it in public, in my experience, and some of the older ones take it to private conversations.
Did you ask in your research if people had done it themselves to other people, and they admitted to it?
Yes, I did ask that. Granted, there's an element in that question of people recognizing what sexism is, and also making that connection with their own behavior, which isn't always going to be as accurate as if you have someone from the outside analyzing it. But we did have approximately, I believe about 12 percent of men and women both who admitted they had made sexist comments or threats or harassment towards other players.
So what sort of sexist comments are women making towards other players? Is this towards other women, or men?
Both. A lot of the common comments made towards men are questioning their sexual preference. What comes more from women than from men is the assumption of the male chauvinist pig. You also get women who are attacking other women. The term 'slut' is something that multiple women would use against one another, and 'attention whore.' I find that those are usually comments made to distinguish oneself from all those other female gamers that the men are making fun of. "Well, yeah, there are female gamers like that, but that's not how I am." That's what that sort of behavior seems to say.
Is this basically bullying, in that whoever is different is going to get pushed around by the other people, who are very heavily invested in being accepted as the norm?
Some men feel like gaming is their realm, and that they want to protect that from females who they see as outsiders encroaching on their activities or their territory. They feel that what was maybe once a safe space, in gaming, is now open to other people and they don't feel as comfortable with that as they would otherwise.
Is it a kind of fear? Is that what it comes down to? Some men are afraid of women and that's why they lash out.
I think that all discrimination generally does come down to fear. Fear of the different and of being exposed to something that you're not familiar with. I think we all have an innate sense that we're comfortable with people like us. When people who aren't like us arrive on the scene, our first instinct is to both distinguish ourselves from those people and, honestly, to fear those people.
Have you found that the competitive element has an influence? When I talk to some of my female friends, they seem to get it worse when they win in video games. That defeat by a woman drives some men crazy.
A lot of time it doesn't matter how you're playing or what your gaming ability is. Just because you're a woman, you're going to get slurs thrown at you.
The only way these things change is by sensible people standing up to it and saying, 'Look, this is simply not acceptable.' Do you feel that your work and some of the articles that get written about this subject will help to make that more the norm?
I hope it will. Just doing the survey kind of opened some people's eyes as to their own behavior and the behavior of others. They weren't previously aware of the sexism that was happening around them, and they couldn't really intervene with that. But now that they're aware that they can, they do step in when they see it.
One of the responses that I see to anything that has to with misogyny or sexism in video games is that complaints about this are "spoiling our fun." That it's a whole lot of political correctness or liberal bias...
Well, I think that they're along the same lines as the people who are saying sexism doesn't exist. I think that those are people, maybe, that recognize that it does exist and don't feel like they can make the argument that it isn't prevalent in the community. So they have to take a different tack at dispelling the argument against it.
Colin Campbell is a features editor at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @colincampbellx.
Very strange to me that people could still be denying sexism happens or is a problem in the gaming community. But I guess you have a lot of people denying the earth is round, too.
I even have a few friends and acquaintances who will deny that it is a real problem, or think that the victims should just suck it up and quit whining because "that's just how the world is". And this is coming from otherwise constructive and intelligent people, I might add. It baffles me.
On the first layer you have sexism, on the second layer there's "blame the victim" mentality.
Men rarely have to deal with sexism, and when they do have to deal with harassment, they probably like to trash talk anyway (because we tend not to be sensitive to others' feelings), so getting into a heated argument actually makes us feel better about ourselves.
Plus few of us (men) stop to think, nor do the trash talkers view themselves as trash talkers, since that's the norm for men who use voice chat in video games.
Even the casual communities, like Team Fortress 2, deal with these problems (although to a lesser degree).
I won't lie, I don't think I've ever stopped a girl from being harassed in CoD throughout the 20ish days of gameplay I've spent. I will, however, try to change this about myself.
@Matthew: You have a good point there, about trash talking being a chance to prove superiority for males (thats how I interpreted you point). I would distinguish between hostile and friendly trash talking, though. I dont even care how rude someone is if its all in jest (friends, usually), but when the intent is to hurt, then it poisons the airwaves.
Maybe "white knighting" it will result in you getting a worse play experience, but I will be rooting for you! :D
as in any case, as soon as people are anonymised or atleast less accountable for their actions
(as with everywhere on the internet), people tend to be less bound by the common rules of socially accepted behaviour and may even slip into socially abject behaviour simply becouse they have to contain themselves every day.
this is a very clear case of that, sometimes it is escapism, and it is what games are good at, every day i am a average or even below average human being but in this game I am a superhero/god/commando whatever.
in this case people are going to try and "vent" their frustrations this way.
I am not condoning nor patronizing this this is a mere explanation not an excuse,
but similar to trolling and other "rude" behaviour it is a part of what anonimity brings forth in many people because of a lack of shame and repercussion.
as online communities mature I do truly hope to see less and less of this in my eyes despicable behaviour for a more mature and respectfull one. however I often wish for the same in "Real life"
Not surprised in the slightest by the report. Who hasn't been abused on public+anon game chat channels? The solution is obvious: system-wide reputation systems (such as in games like League of Legends) on comm systems like XBox LIve.
Frankly, if Microsoft put half the effort in to this that they routinely invest in trying to figure out how to jam more adds into the latest XBox Dashboard, this would be a solved problem already.
I would never say that sexism doesn't exist, but on the other hand I wonder if the problem is really sexism so much as it is just anonymity and general asshole-ness.
Because it's not just women who get harassed.... it's also very common to hear racial slurs online. And even if you're a white guy and they can't hurl sexist or racist comments at you, there's still plenty of ways for them to trash talk you and you'll hear all of them. And the people who do this sort of trash talking I wouldn't necessarily call sexist or racist... it's more just that they are looking to push your buttons and they'll find the most offensive way possible. If you're a woman they will be sexist, if you're black they will be racist. If you're white then you're a loser who lives with your parents and your mom is a whore. The shield of anonymity brings out the worst in some people, who get off on pissing off others.
That's not to say that there aren't plenty of sexist guys out there who genuinely go after women just because they have a problem with women. I'm sure there are. But I also know that everyone gets trash talked online, regardless of whether you're a woman or a man. There's basically nothing that can be done about it, it's just the nature of the internet and if you're gonna brave it it's a good idea to have a thick skin.
Don't forget that there is inherently a sexist edge to it if the insults are customized after the gender of the recepient! But yes, I would say that online gaming (really online communities in general) suffers badly from anonymous shithead syndrome (A.S.S.) :P
If the target of the "trash talk" is a woman, the usual insults are sexually abusive or harassing.
If the target of the "trash talk" is a man, the usual insults are, as you say, to throw those same sexual insults at the person's mother, or to call the target a girl, sissy, faggot, etc, or otherwise feminize them.
So no matter the gender of the target, the harassment is rooted in misogyny and sexism.
@Joe: I'd say you have a good point, but that's simply not true. There are a lot more ways to trash talk a man that have nothing to do with feminizing them. The big one you missed is racial comments... if the male being trashed talked is black, then without a doubt he will run into racist comments. And then there's trash talking that aims at your social status, like calling you a loser who lives with your parents. And then there's trash talking that just plain aims at your skill at video games.
So no, harassment is not always rooted in misogyny. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. And even when the comments are sexist, I still believe that in many cases the root cause is not so much misogyny as it is people who are online dicks who are looking to push buttons in whatever way is most offensive to their current target.
"I would never say that sexism doesn't exist, but on the other hand I wonder if the problem is really sexism so much as it is just anonymity and general asshole-ness."
The guy who created the game about beating up Anita Sarkeesian was perfectly happy to defend the game under his real name, as were a number of other people. Anonymity isn't the problem, some people are just jerks.
@Adam: The whole point of the Anna Sarkeesian game was a statement against a person and her policies, not a statement against women in general. It's entire purpose was as an ironic counter to her feminism (important distinction, counter feminism is not the same as sexism. Feminism is a movement that advocates equality for women, not to be mistaken with the gender as a whole).
I don't consider the game cyber bullying so much as extreme activism (also bad). A lot of the negative comments on the kickstarter itself I would consider cyber bullying though.
@Adam You're certainly right, some people are just jerks. But I believe that when people are behind a shield of anonymity, the amount of jerks multiplies by 10. And in the context of this article, that women often feel harassed when playing online games, I think this is very relevant.
"A lot of time it doesn't matter how you're playing or what your gaming ability is. Just because you're a woman, you're going to get slurs thrown at you."
This must be something relating to voice coms, I've been playing mmos for about 12 years and while I don't advertise I'm female, all the guilds I've been in and anyone who asks I have told. In all that time nobody has made any gender slurs to me.
Perhaps the issue here is more the random nature of multiplayer matches in shooters. By being thrown into mixing pots you're far more likely to never meet those people again or even spend any time getting to know them. There is no actual community that could shun you and so you have no real social fallout from being aggressive or nasty. When you're surrounded by aggressive or nasty people, perhaps that defines how you behave if you continue to be in that environment and want to "get involved".
I never use voice coms in multiplayer games, I dislike the reactive nature of blocking people who offend or disgust me as opposed to choosing who i hear, I have to choose who I don't, and by then it's already too late.
That's an important statistic that I can't see in the report unfortunately. I really wish there was a better way for your reputation to follow you in many online games.
League of Legends got tremendously better after adding the report system, and better again after adding the honor system. I wish more games did something similar.
There are a very good video on youtube by girlwriteswhat that explains that men use trash talking as part of their tools for superity.
What happened is that trash talking is always seen as a bad thing near women, thus as women became more and more involved in men activities, the trash talking had to be moved to somewhere else.
The place to trash talk originally was the workplace, men bullied other men all the time as a way to get advantage, or as a joke when the other men were their friends. When women entered the workplace, that became "sexual harassment", but actually the harassment does not happen because men are misoginist, or because women are seen as diffrent, it is the opposite, when women entered the workplace wanting to be equals, they got bullied too (until lawsuits started to fly).
There are few "man spaces" in our culture, men only bars in many nations are forbidden now, houses now rarely has the man cave room, most workplaces have more women than men (the exception is for example construction, plumbing, farming...).
So the only place that is left for most men to feel manly by doing some instinctive things is online games, shooter in particular allow men to exercise their hunter and scout instincts.
Maria Jayne also has a good and correct point.
What will happen when the "sexism" (it is not sexism, it is just assholeness in general) gets curbed in online shooters? It will move somewhere else... OR it will explode (I have no idea what will happen when it explodes, but I suspect the whole society will get stinky...)
Note: I am not defending assholes, and I never trash talk in games (I think having superior skills is enough to show superiority, and I can do psychological warfare with the gameplay), I am explaining why it happen.
It is NOT sexism, if you keep thinking it is, you are missing the source of the things, and you will fail to solve the problem (if it can be solved, that is).
I realize shitheads like you enjoy girlwriteswhat's "work" because she tells you things like, it's okay to beat your girlfriend, but really, no, that's not okay, thinking like that is not okay, it's dangerous and sexist and scary and has nothing to do with "man spaces," it's just fucking creepy and disgusting. "Men's Rights", MRAs, and the MRM are creepy and disgusting, even when it's a woman advocating it. Evo psych is creepy and disgusting and wrong.
You're a bad person if you honestly think things like that.
It is sexism, you are sexist, you are creepy and disgusting. Go away.
Mauricio just consider for a moment that your defense of trash talking is that it "is what men do." Do you realize what sexism even means?
And frankly, I think Joe was spot on. I've read numerous posts by you on this site, and your views on women make you seem to be a deranged individual, to put it politely.
Mike, I have zero tolerance for people who promote domestic violence as a positive outcome. That includes girlwriteswhat, and Maurício is supporting her views explicitly here, and he's written *reams* of sexist bullshit on this site before. It is not bullying to push back, and I'm sick of wading into threads to dispel the same shit over and over again. If you advocate or even tolerate that kind of behavior, you're awful. Full fucking stop.
If someone wants to read rational attempts to counter fuckups like Maurício, there's plenty of that already on Gamasutra. There's plenty of that in the critical and scientific literature which people like them have no interest in reading. We're past that. Baseless crap like this takes no time to think about or write and lots of time and effort to counter especially if you want to be "calm and rational" about it, and we've done that, so from now on FUCK THAT DISPARITY. It's not worth it anymore. We need to tell people like that they're flat out not welcome on this site, in this industry, in the gaming enthusiast community, until they change their attitude or at least their behavior and if they still don't understand why there's plenty of reading material out there for them.
(Dan, please correct the first name in your post (which I assume should be "Maurício").)
I haven't listened to any videos by girlwriteswhat, but her point is obviously flawed. There is no deep ingrained need inside of men to be assholes, and they certainly don't need a place where being an asshole can be "safe." It's simple, as society stops condoning that behavior, the culture of men being assholes will be changed. Now if you're a Tyler Durden sort of guy, maybe you'll get mad and say that society is trying to feminize men, and start a fight club, or something... but that's just a movie. I think that in reality, most men will simply accept the change as a good thing and over time there will be less assholes.
So to summarize, girlwriteswhat doesn't understand men at all, and she should be ignored.
Just noticed that Joe said I should not be welcomed on Gamasutra because of my views.
Well Joe...
You are welcome on Gamasutra, I like when people have opposing views, it is this way that I can learn more, improve, see other viewpoints that maybe I am missing, and rethink my values.
You and others like you are the grinding stone that sharpen my arguments. And I will always defend your right to have your opinion, even if I don't agree with it, because without opinion I would not be able to measure my own.
There is no shadow without the light.
There is no cold without heat.
There is no good without evil.
There is no up without down.
I cannot be a anti-feminist (note: I am not MRA although people like to say I "spew MRA bullshit" because MRAs are egalitarians and I am complementarian) if there are no feminists.
I cannot be a complementarian without egalitarians.
I cannot be me, without you.
So, I welcome you, I defend my right to keep enjoying games and working in the game industry, and I defend your right to do the same, because I cannot be me, without you being you.
@Aleksander Adamkiewicz If her views are consistant with what Mauricio has stated here, then I stand by my statement, her views are obviously flawed. If he's misrepresenting her in some way, then I may be wrong about her. But judging by the general reaction from others, I don't think I am. Just a hunch.
If you want to discuss what GWW has to say, listen to what she has to say, don't take other peoples word for it. This is the internet, the information and content referenced is literally only one click away.
She is only reading of a script sitting in her kitchen, so you can even listen to her on the go, like a podcast, if you are afraid that the video will take up too much of your time.
You can also read what she has to say on her blog: http://owningyourshit.blogspot.se/
Stop being intellectually lazy and watch her videos to form you own opinion instead of relying on hearsay.
Until then, everything you say about her, or her arguments, is invalid, as you don't actually know her argument.
So I've never heard of this GWW before, but after watching a few of her videos; its clear to me, she is not very bright. She complains of feminist strawmans (strawmen?) and uses her own strawman.
Talk about indoctrination. I don't even know how she can believe what she says. She says that men have fought for their right to vote by dying in wars, so women shouldn't get to vote because they haven't and couldn't have military service? Modern feminism is advocating that women should be on the frontline and are just as capable as men at defending their nation.
Its that kind of idiotic ideology that kept slavery around as long as it did in America. These simple minded black folk clearly can't take care of themselves, so its obviously the responsibility of the white man to take care of them. I mean, if the logical fallacy is the oppressed don't get a say because they don't get to shoulder the responsibility, then American should always be at war, and only those who serve in war (and don't die) should get the right to vote.
NO! That's stupid. Girl Writes What is stupid.
While I can agree with the idea of Joe Wreschnig, that we (as a society or community) should shun such bigoted behavior, but the catch-22 is we'd become that which we are advocating against. Segregating people off, doesn't sound like a good idea to me. It'd just create an us vs them, and really polarize the view points. So, in conclusion, I don't have any answers and I like to waste everybody's time.
While I think it's true that her videos are highly flawed, and that she uses a lot of strawman arguments, and doesn't seem to realise what modern feminism is about (total equality for everyone no matter what gender or race or sexuality) and instead seems to believe that feminism is pure misandry and female supremacy. You shouldn't resort to ad hominem, while her arguments may be bad, and her information poor, there's no need to call her stupid. She seems quite intelligent, but in the same way that creationists are. Picking and choosing results to match the hypothesis.
While I don't entirely agree with most of Mauricio's points, particularly on where the root of the harassment towards women comes from (I'm my experience women are harassed in game even more than Black people, Jewish people, Gay people, etc.), I do think he brings up a good point regarding the motivations behind the harassment towards women.
I'm not saying something doesn't need to be done and I'm not claiming to know how much of the harassment is motivated by misogyny vs people just being assholes. I won't deny that sexism exists in games and that, in my experience, women are treated worse than other minority groups. But, I would like to see the harassment numbers as they relate to all minority groups. Perhaps that will give us a real picture as to how much of the harassment towards women is related to sexism and how much is related to people just being assholes.
Again, I'm not saying that something doesn't need to be done here and I'm not trying to downplay this woman's study. But, I'm hoping that when something is done we will take measures make things fair for all minority groups (and the majority group :P ).
@Joe I have to thank you for motivating me to actually post something. That said, I've been reading your posts for quite a while and you have to be one of the biggest bullies I have ever seen. Even if people presents something you don't agree with in non-offensive manner you respond back with some of the most vitriolic posts I've seen on Gamasutra. The fact that you have so many people liking what you post is interesting to me. Do you really have to resort to ad hominem so often to get your point across? I guess it certainly serves to get you noticed, but really?
I’ve always thought it was ironic that you can garner so much support with bullying and discriminatory remarks in the comments sections of articles that are made to raise awareness of discrimination.
Yeah, I too doubt what your suggestion of "real research" would contribute more these findings. Maybe the hint that there is something profoundly wrong with manchildren, which isn't the news at all.
Micheal; I never implied he was sexist, I just said she was talking about the people with same characteristic that Aleksander here has proven quite few times; undermining, spoken-down and patrionizing.
Congratulation for you to call him sexist!
It would seem to me that being better than a woman is grounds for being sexist these days, but like a bunch of the comments before me I agree that there is a clear difference between mean-spirited taunts and good-nature d ribbing and anonymity plays a factor in people being ass-hats. So to address this "fear" she's proclaiming I would agree that people like to differentiate themselves say core- gamers vs. Kinect only gamers but fear that's malarkey people just like having an identity and if suddenly all gamers got bundled together there would be no sense of identity in the gaming community.
Can't believe nobody has posted this yet. It's classic Xbox Live trashtalking, but all women versus one man. Pretty funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQnIJ-ljctk
Also, regardless of statistical evidence, spending 10 minutes on any Xbox Live game when a woman pops in is enough evidence for me to believe there is rampant sexism there.
It has always been that way on the internet, I can remember it as far back as the 90s when I was 14 and using chatrooms. The fact that young guys can get away with saying anything online without repercussions just opens the floodgates to minority-bashing. What are we going to do, FORCE them to mature?
Football has kick racism out of football campaign. Why not sexism out of gaming? I guess u could take racism out of gaming but is that really an issue?
I cannot stress this enough. While there is a problem with sexism in gaming communities do not, I repeat, DO NOT blow it out of proportion and create a way for female gamer to claim themselves the victim. In my experiences with female gamers I generally back them up even if I don't know them personally. I also do a list of other things that makes them feel comfortable and not singled out like so many others do even though they are trying to be helpful.
1. There is no male or female gamer, there is a gamer and that is the end of that.
2. Do not cater to a female gamer just because they are female. If you cater to a female player then you should cater to all other players.
3. Compliment or criticize a female player as you would a male player.
4. When in a lobby and a female voice flows over the stream treat it like any other player talking.
I may seem a little apathetic towards the subject in regards to giving females any special attention or "protecting" them but that is what causes problems. You give an individual the idea that they are special they will take it all the way. As I said previously female gamers are just gamers. I am likely to shoot her as much as I am likely to shoot him. I don't hesitate because she has a sweet voice or shes giggling. I don't give her money or items because she is a girl.
I reward anyone for being a good player and I defend both male and female players against trash talkers.
The most shocking thing to me is that 40% of the women surveyed were never harassed online. I'm a dude and if I play online everyday for a week I'm bound to get a few IMs from someone I beat or lost to (funny how losing or winning is a zero factor) might calling me a p***y, b***h, f*g, n****r, or some other remark. I thought everyone got harassed on the internet and that was just how it worked.
Anyways, I think it's less sexism and just -isms in general. What makes you different than others in a way that someone could easily identify by hearing your voice or seeing your online profile? Whatever that happens to be is what people are going to hone in on. It's no different than the playground except on the playground the jackasses at least had the courage to say it to your face, live and in person.
I don't know how you stop it. Humans have hated each other for a variety of petty and moronic reasons for the last few dozens of thousands of years. I don't know what recent breakthroughs in science and society we can turn to in order to now be able to eliminate it, especially with the rise and societal acceptance of tech that allows people to easily and anonymously hate people for a variety of petty and moronic reasons.
You would stop it by being setting a positive example, convincing other people to behave well - then, hopefully, we'd see a snowball effect and things would move somewhat in the right direction. That's the general goal, anyway.
I find it says more than any research could, that the standard argument here seems to be "Sure, there is sexism against females but IT'S OK because there is ALSO racism against blacks". Stay classy.
Who said it was ok? There is a difference between pointing out that something is misdiagnosed and condoning the action. If the problem is discrimination in general or cyber-bullying in general, what good does it do to paint it as only sexism?
@Ian You're misunderstanding the point. No one said that sexism was okay because there is also racism. The point is that a woman being mistreated online is not necessarily sexism just because she's a woman. Sexism, by definition, means treating one gender differently than another. Now, certainly there are people out there who are rude to women just because they are women... that's sexism. But there's also obviously plenty of people who are just rude to everyone. That's NOT sexism. It's just plain rudeness. No one's saying that rudeness is okay, but let's label it what it is.
Now when it comes to the women in this survey, you could make the point that in many cases they were probably being treated worse simply because of their gender. You might be right. But how many of those cases were sexism, and how many were women just running into rude people like we ALL do? There's no way to answer that, is there? And that's precisely the point... this survey is inherently flawed, and actually says very little about the amount of sexism online. It's more about what women percieve to be sexism, which may or may not be a good indicator.
So, while I'm not saying that there is no sexism online, let's just keep in mind that surveys like this need to be taken with a grain of salt. IMO sexism is certainly a problem, but it's a subset of a larger problem, which is just the general culture of online rudeness that is so pervasive in our society. And I think it's important to point that out.
I don't see the relevance of this article and most of the comments. Here are the designers, mature man and women. And the target group are anonymous immature men. They don't care about this article.
Will this discussion result in change? Will xbox accounts be banned? Will there be an option to only hear friends? Will it be easier to block the audio of jerks?
Don't underestimate the power of being anonymous, just read comments on youtube or whatever.
Things could improve if microsoft/sony give more audio options with voice chat. Otherwise, it's a mentality and it won't change any time soon.
More to the point, the articles always assume its a huge problem as if 50% of the players in such games really were women. I'm sure a full 50% of baseball fans and the rest really are women too, and half of twilight fans are men...you know...because facts don't matter...
Men rarely have to deal with sexism, and when they do have to deal with harassment, they probably like to trash talk anyway (because we tend not to be sensitive to others' feelings), so getting into a heated argument actually makes us feel better about ourselves.
Plus few of us (men) stop to think, nor do the trash talkers view themselves as trash talkers, since that's the norm for men who use voice chat in video games.
Even the casual communities, like Team Fortress 2, deal with these problems (although to a lesser degree).
I won't lie, I don't think I've ever stopped a girl from being harassed in CoD throughout the 20ish days of gameplay I've spent. I will, however, try to change this about myself.
Maybe "white knighting" it will result in you getting a worse play experience, but I will be rooting for you! :D
(as with everywhere on the internet), people tend to be less bound by the common rules of socially accepted behaviour and may even slip into socially abject behaviour simply becouse they have to contain themselves every day.
this is a very clear case of that, sometimes it is escapism, and it is what games are good at, every day i am a average or even below average human being but in this game I am a superhero/god/commando whatever.
in this case people are going to try and "vent" their frustrations this way.
I am not condoning nor patronizing this this is a mere explanation not an excuse,
but similar to trolling and other "rude" behaviour it is a part of what anonimity brings forth in many people because of a lack of shame and repercussion.
as online communities mature I do truly hope to see less and less of this in my eyes despicable behaviour for a more mature and respectfull one. however I often wish for the same in "Real life"
Frankly, if Microsoft put half the effort in to this that they routinely invest in trying to figure out how to jam more adds into the latest XBox Dashboard, this would be a solved problem already.
Because it's not just women who get harassed.... it's also very common to hear racial slurs online. And even if you're a white guy and they can't hurl sexist or racist comments at you, there's still plenty of ways for them to trash talk you and you'll hear all of them. And the people who do this sort of trash talking I wouldn't necessarily call sexist or racist... it's more just that they are looking to push your buttons and they'll find the most offensive way possible. If you're a woman they will be sexist, if you're black they will be racist. If you're white then you're a loser who lives with your parents and your mom is a whore. The shield of anonymity brings out the worst in some people, who get off on pissing off others.
That's not to say that there aren't plenty of sexist guys out there who genuinely go after women just because they have a problem with women. I'm sure there are. But I also know that everyone gets trash talked online, regardless of whether you're a woman or a man. There's basically nothing that can be done about it, it's just the nature of the internet and if you're gonna brave it it's a good idea to have a thick skin.
If the target of the "trash talk" is a man, the usual insults are, as you say, to throw those same sexual insults at the person's mother, or to call the target a girl, sissy, faggot, etc, or otherwise feminize them.
So no matter the gender of the target, the harassment is rooted in misogyny and sexism.
So no, harassment is not always rooted in misogyny. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. And even when the comments are sexist, I still believe that in many cases the root cause is not so much misogyny as it is people who are online dicks who are looking to push buttons in whatever way is most offensive to their current target.
The guy who created the game about beating up Anita Sarkeesian was perfectly happy to defend the game under his real name, as were a number of other people. Anonymity isn't the problem, some people are just jerks.
I don't consider the game cyber bullying so much as extreme activism (also bad). A lot of the negative comments on the kickstarter itself I would consider cyber bullying though.
This must be something relating to voice coms, I've been playing mmos for about 12 years and while I don't advertise I'm female, all the guilds I've been in and anyone who asks I have told. In all that time nobody has made any gender slurs to me.
Perhaps the issue here is more the random nature of multiplayer matches in shooters. By being thrown into mixing pots you're far more likely to never meet those people again or even spend any time getting to know them. There is no actual community that could shun you and so you have no real social fallout from being aggressive or nasty. When you're surrounded by aggressive or nasty people, perhaps that defines how you behave if you continue to be in that environment and want to "get involved".
I never use voice coms in multiplayer games, I dislike the reactive nature of blocking people who offend or disgust me as opposed to choosing who i hear, I have to choose who I don't, and by then it's already too late.
League of Legends got tremendously better after adding the report system, and better again after adding the honor system. I wish more games did something similar.
What happened is that trash talking is always seen as a bad thing near women, thus as women became more and more involved in men activities, the trash talking had to be moved to somewhere else.
The place to trash talk originally was the workplace, men bullied other men all the time as a way to get advantage, or as a joke when the other men were their friends. When women entered the workplace, that became "sexual harassment", but actually the harassment does not happen because men are misoginist, or because women are seen as diffrent, it is the opposite, when women entered the workplace wanting to be equals, they got bullied too (until lawsuits started to fly).
There are few "man spaces" in our culture, men only bars in many nations are forbidden now, houses now rarely has the man cave room, most workplaces have more women than men (the exception is for example construction, plumbing, farming...).
So the only place that is left for most men to feel manly by doing some instinctive things is online games, shooter in particular allow men to exercise their hunter and scout instincts.
Maria Jayne also has a good and correct point.
What will happen when the "sexism" (it is not sexism, it is just assholeness in general) gets curbed in online shooters? It will move somewhere else... OR it will explode (I have no idea what will happen when it explodes, but I suspect the whole society will get stinky...)
Note: I am not defending assholes, and I never trash talk in games (I think having superior skills is enough to show superiority, and I can do psychological warfare with the gameplay), I am explaining why it happen.
It is NOT sexism, if you keep thinking it is, you are missing the source of the things, and you will fail to solve the problem (if it can be solved, that is).
You're a bad person if you honestly think things like that.
It is sexism, you are sexist, you are creepy and disgusting. Go away.
And frankly, I think Joe was spot on. I've read numerous posts by you on this site, and your views on women make you seem to be a deranged individual, to put it politely.
If someone wants to read rational attempts to counter fuckups like Maurício, there's plenty of that already on Gamasutra. There's plenty of that in the critical and scientific literature which people like them have no interest in reading. We're past that. Baseless crap like this takes no time to think about or write and lots of time and effort to counter especially if you want to be "calm and rational" about it, and we've done that, so from now on FUCK THAT DISPARITY. It's not worth it anymore. We need to tell people like that they're flat out not welcome on this site, in this industry, in the gaming enthusiast community, until they change their attitude or at least their behavior and if they still don't understand why there's plenty of reading material out there for them.
(Dan, please correct the first name in your post (which I assume should be "Maurício").)
If you provide a link I would really appreciate (I did not watch all of her videos).
So to summarize, girlwriteswhat doesn't understand men at all, and she should be ignored.
How do you know what her point is, or if its true or false, without listening to what she has to say?
Well Joe...
You are welcome on Gamasutra, I like when people have opposing views, it is this way that I can learn more, improve, see other viewpoints that maybe I am missing, and rethink my values.
You and others like you are the grinding stone that sharpen my arguments. And I will always defend your right to have your opinion, even if I don't agree with it, because without opinion I would not be able to measure my own.
There is no shadow without the light.
There is no cold without heat.
There is no good without evil.
There is no up without down.
I cannot be a anti-feminist (note: I am not MRA although people like to say I "spew MRA bullshit" because MRAs are egalitarians and I am complementarian) if there are no feminists.
I cannot be a complementarian without egalitarians.
I cannot be me, without you.
So, I welcome you, I defend my right to keep enjoying games and working in the game industry, and I defend your right to do the same, because I cannot be me, without you being you.
As Aristotle once said:
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
Please don't attack those with whom you disagree. Go for the ball, not the player. Etcetera.
If you want to discuss what GWW has to say, listen to what she has to say, don't take other peoples word for it. This is the internet, the information and content referenced is literally only one click away.
She is only reading of a script sitting in her kitchen, so you can even listen to her on the go, like a podcast, if you are afraid that the video will take up too much of your time.
You can also read what she has to say on her blog: http://owningyourshit.blogspot.se/
Stop being intellectually lazy and watch her videos to form you own opinion instead of relying on hearsay.
Until then, everything you say about her, or her arguments, is invalid, as you don't actually know her argument.
Talk about indoctrination. I don't even know how she can believe what she says. She says that men have fought for their right to vote by dying in wars, so women shouldn't get to vote because they haven't and couldn't have military service? Modern feminism is advocating that women should be on the frontline and are just as capable as men at defending their nation.
Its that kind of idiotic ideology that kept slavery around as long as it did in America. These simple minded black folk clearly can't take care of themselves, so its obviously the responsibility of the white man to take care of them. I mean, if the logical fallacy is the oppressed don't get a say because they don't get to shoulder the responsibility, then American should always be at war, and only those who serve in war (and don't die) should get the right to vote.
NO! That's stupid. Girl Writes What is stupid.
While I can agree with the idea of Joe Wreschnig, that we (as a society or community) should shun such bigoted behavior, but the catch-22 is we'd become that which we are advocating against. Segregating people off, doesn't sound like a good idea to me. It'd just create an us vs them, and really polarize the view points. So, in conclusion, I don't have any answers and I like to waste everybody's time.
While I think it's true that her videos are highly flawed, and that she uses a lot of strawman arguments, and doesn't seem to realise what modern feminism is about (total equality for everyone no matter what gender or race or sexuality) and instead seems to believe that feminism is pure misandry and female supremacy. You shouldn't resort to ad hominem, while her arguments may be bad, and her information poor, there's no need to call her stupid. She seems quite intelligent, but in the same way that creationists are. Picking and choosing results to match the hypothesis.
I'm not saying something doesn't need to be done and I'm not claiming to know how much of the harassment is motivated by misogyny vs people just being assholes. I won't deny that sexism exists in games and that, in my experience, women are treated worse than other minority groups. But, I would like to see the harassment numbers as they relate to all minority groups. Perhaps that will give us a real picture as to how much of the harassment towards women is related to sexism and how much is related to people just being assholes.
Again, I'm not saying that something doesn't need to be done here and I'm not trying to downplay this woman's study. But, I'm hoping that when something is done we will take measures make things fair for all minority groups (and the majority group :P ).
@Joe I have to thank you for motivating me to actually post something. That said, I've been reading your posts for quite a while and you have to be one of the biggest bullies I have ever seen. Even if people presents something you don't agree with in non-offensive manner you respond back with some of the most vitriolic posts I've seen on Gamasutra. The fact that you have so many people liking what you post is interesting to me. Do you really have to resort to ad hominem so often to get your point across? I guess it certainly serves to get you noticed, but really?
I’ve always thought it was ironic that you can garner so much support with bullying and discriminatory remarks in the comments sections of articles that are made to raise awareness of discrimination.
It's a self-selecting online poll with some gratuitous conjecture.
Please Gamasutra, have some standards, don't become Kotaku.
Call me when someone has done some real research, i.e. something with peer-review.
Congratulation for you to call him sexist!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQnIJ-ljctk
Also, regardless of statistical evidence, spending 10 minutes on any Xbox Live game when a woman pops in is enough evidence for me to believe there is rampant sexism there.
It has always been that way on the internet, I can remember it as far back as the 90s when I was 14 and using chatrooms. The fact that young guys can get away with saying anything online without repercussions just opens the floodgates to minority-bashing. What are we going to do, FORCE them to mature?
If they did, we would have mixed-gender teams, but we unfortunately don't.
Far more egregious in my opinion, at least in competitive gaming you have mixed teams and everyone is allowed to compete equally.
1. There is no male or female gamer, there is a gamer and that is the end of that.
2. Do not cater to a female gamer just because they are female. If you cater to a female player then you should cater to all other players.
3. Compliment or criticize a female player as you would a male player.
4. When in a lobby and a female voice flows over the stream treat it like any other player talking.
I may seem a little apathetic towards the subject in regards to giving females any special attention or "protecting" them but that is what causes problems. You give an individual the idea that they are special they will take it all the way. As I said previously female gamers are just gamers. I am likely to shoot her as much as I am likely to shoot him. I don't hesitate because she has a sweet voice or shes giggling. I don't give her money or items because she is a girl.
I reward anyone for being a good player and I defend both male and female players against trash talkers.
Anyways, I think it's less sexism and just -isms in general. What makes you different than others in a way that someone could easily identify by hearing your voice or seeing your online profile? Whatever that happens to be is what people are going to hone in on. It's no different than the playground except on the playground the jackasses at least had the courage to say it to your face, live and in person.
I don't know how you stop it. Humans have hated each other for a variety of petty and moronic reasons for the last few dozens of thousands of years. I don't know what recent breakthroughs in science and society we can turn to in order to now be able to eliminate it, especially with the rise and societal acceptance of tech that allows people to easily and anonymously hate people for a variety of petty and moronic reasons.
Now when it comes to the women in this survey, you could make the point that in many cases they were probably being treated worse simply because of their gender. You might be right. But how many of those cases were sexism, and how many were women just running into rude people like we ALL do? There's no way to answer that, is there? And that's precisely the point... this survey is inherently flawed, and actually says very little about the amount of sexism online. It's more about what women percieve to be sexism, which may or may not be a good indicator.
So, while I'm not saying that there is no sexism online, let's just keep in mind that surveys like this need to be taken with a grain of salt. IMO sexism is certainly a problem, but it's a subset of a larger problem, which is just the general culture of online rudeness that is so pervasive in our society. And I think it's important to point that out.
I think everyone just needs to calm down.
Will this discussion result in change? Will xbox accounts be banned? Will there be an option to only hear friends? Will it be easier to block the audio of jerks?
Don't underestimate the power of being anonymous, just read comments on youtube or whatever.
Things could improve if microsoft/sony give more audio options with voice chat. Otherwise, it's a mentality and it won't change any time soon.