Gender in Gamer Culture and the Virtual World Nicholas Maisonave

Gender in Gamer Culture and the Virtual World
Nicholas Maisonave
Master’s Project
Department of Communication
Stanford University
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1. Introduction
Within the field of Communication, game scholarship is relatively new. Looking at video
games as a communicative medium allows for further inquiry into the implications games might
have in the development of gamer communities (and culture) and the construction of a gamer
identity. As games continue to enamor a larger percentage of the general public, these
implications become progressively more significant. In this literature review, I will focus
specifically on the concept of gender in gaming—both within the video games themselves and as
a construct formed within real-world game communities.
Originally thought to be just a mere child’s pastime, video games have exploded into the
mainstream lifestyle of the American public. Now a multibillion-dollar industry, video games
have claimed a stake in the lives of everyday people. In fact, according to the Entertainment
Software Association (2010), it is now estimated that over two thirds of all American households
play computer or video games, women make up 40% of gamers, the average gamer is 34 years
old, and gamers have been gaming for an average of 12 years. Clearly, video games are here to
stay and are far more than just a child’s pastime. With recent advents in technology, people now
have the opportunity to take gaming on the go—gamers can enjoy a bout of Angry Birds in the
palm of their hands on their telephones or perhaps might tend to their crops in FarmVille by
logging into their Facebook accounts. Games are no longer reserved to consoles and cartridges.
As technology continues to allow gaming to become more widespread, it becomes increasingly
important that we, as a society, understand the psychological and sociological effects games have
on gamers. Gamers are slowly but steadily changing from a minority to the majority. As this
process continues, we must ask ourselves: is gamer culture something that should be universally
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expanded throughout modern life? Are there negative effects of gaming that need to be critically
examined? What are the characteristics of gamer culture, and how did it come to be this way?
This cultural analysis will build on the theoretical framework of media effects put forth
by Cultivation Theory (Gerbner et al., 2002) and Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 2001).
Cultivation Theory states that people’s perception of reality is constructed and altered by
information present in consumed media. Originally based in television scholarship, Cultivation
Theory is founded on the premise that increased and ubiquitous consumption of media causes
these media to become a solidifying source for knowledge of the world. Thus, should certain
media present information in a specific or homogenous way, this could conceivably lead to the
formation of generalizations and stereotyping. This is a process known as enculturation—media
consumers gradually acquire the characteristics of and adapt to the cultural information presented
in media. As we will see, the depictions of gender within gamer culture, and especially the video
games themselves, provide a very strong example of the homogenization of media content.
Similar to Cultivation Theory, Social Cognitive Theory purports that media exposure
creates cognitive schemata based on the media’s content, and that these schemata then affect and
guide behavior in the real world. Social Cognitive Theory provides a more active view of the
media consumption process. With Cultivation Theory, the process of enculturation is a
seemingly passive one. Individuals consume media content and subsequently have their
perceptions of the world appropriately altered. Social Cognitive Theory instead theorizes that
media content lays a functional groundwork in which consumers can navigate. Concerning the
topic of gender, Social Cognitive Theory would state that video games, as a medium, present
certain perceptions of gender that allow for the creation of specific cognitive gender schemata.
Thus, when consumers are called to think about gender (or related topics), they will likely invoke
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the same cognitive pathways developed through media consumption—in this case, gender
presentations in games. Also like Cultivation Theory, Social Cognitive Theory helps provide a
possible explanation for the production of stereotypes from skewed media portrayals. Should an
individual be repeatedly exposed to a singular type of gender representation, then s/he is more
likely to invoke those specific cognitive schemata whenever the topic of gender is made salient.
Thus, with these two theories in mind, video games can be seen as a medium in which gender is
constructed, performed, and upheld, and that messages about gender in the virtual world can
have real-world consequences.
Gender is not a topic unfamiliar to the world of gaming. According to the International
Game Developers Association (2005), 88.5% of game developers are male and 92% of
developers are heterosexual. Also, both female and LGBTQ game developers held stronger
opinions that the game industry lacks diversity and that diversity has a direct impact on the
games produced. Thus, the viewpoint from which the majority of games are developed is one
that is held by a largely homogenous contingent of game developers. With such an
overwhelmingly large percentage of heterosexual males as game developers, it is no surprise that
portrayals and perceptions of gender in video games are skewed. Supporting this claim, gender
ideology among men, specifically highly masculine-identified men, has been shown to be
strongly tied with sexual orientation—to be a man is to be heterosexual, to be gay is to breach a
man’s masculinity, and to question a man’s masculinity is to question his sexuality (Pascoe,
2007; Parrott, 2008; Herek, 1986; Kimmell, 1997). With reference back to the two theories of
media consumption, having such a sizeable proportion of game developers as heterosexual men
can help to explain why female and LGBTQ game developers felt that diversity of developers
translates directly into diversity of the games produced. Homogenization of gender and sexuality
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on the side of the developers consequently leads to homogenization of gender and sexuality in
the resulting games. Thus, in gamer culture, the vast amount of depictions of gender and
sexuality, at least of those present in video games, are those of the heterosexual male gaze.
Gender differences have also been observed in perceptions of, motivations for, and
participation in gaming. In massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), men are significantly
more likely to play games due to the possibly of great achievement and the ability to manipulate
the game environment for personal gain, whereas women are significantly more likely to play
games due to their desire to interact with fellow gamers and form meaningful relationships (Yee,
2006). Men are also significantly more likely to play video games for longer periods of time and
state that video games interfere with other real-world activities (Ogletree & Drake, 2007). Men
have been shown to be more confident than women about their gaming capabilities (Terlecki et
al., 2011), and to feel better about themselves after gaming for an extended period of time
(Phillips et al., 1995). Additionally, when children are asked about video game preferences, boys
are significantly more likely to state preference for games that are viewed specifically as
designed for boys, whereas girl prefer those designed for girls (Heeter et al., 2009).
Understandably, if so many games are designed by men, it might be the case that few games
exist that are specifically designed with women in mind, thus helping to explain why gamer
culture has been historically male-dominated. Whether or not these gender differences are the
cause or the result, or both, of skewed gender portrayals in video games has yet to be determined,
but future research should indeed venture further into this issue.
Gender has an important historical precedent in gamer culture as well. In her candid
account of a quest to develop a computer game company specifically targeting girls, Brenda
Laurel in Utopian Entrepreneur writes:
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Computer games as we know them were invented by young men…They were enjoyed by
young men, and young men soon made a very profitable business of them…Arcade
computer games were sold into male-gendered spaces, and when home computer game
consoles were invented, they were sold through male-oriented consumer electronics
channels to more young men. The whole industry consolidated very quickly around a
young male demographic… (2001, p. 23)
This historical construction of gender, as we will see, is of utmost importance in the ways
in which gender is currently constructed among gamers within this culture. The ubiquity of
maleness among early gamers and technology enthusiasts served as an initial barrier for women
seeking to enter the gaming community. With the explosion of contemporary gaming, one would
think the gender of gamers would be of declining importance, mostly since more women than
ever now make up a contingent of this culture. Unfortunately, the cultural and social vestiges of
the community described by Laurel have left a noticeable and lasting impact on all gamers in
gamer culture, but most assuredly on the female gamers.
In this literature review, I’d like to hypothesize a possible mechanism for the construction
and maintenance of skewed gender representations and sexism in video games and gamer
culture. First, I will review the extant literature on character portrayals in modern games and
gaming peripherals, laying the foundation for further analysis by establishing the current state of
affairs through video game character content analyses. Second, I will theorize how both the
process of constructing a marginalized masculinity (that of the nerd) and the pervasiveness and
transposition cultural stereotypes against women work within mediated spaces and gamer culture
in the real world to reinforce and uphold skewed gender depictions in gaming. Then, I will
summarize the available research demonstrating the various effects, both positive and negative,
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that these portrayals of gender in gaming have on the gamers themselves. Finally, I will conclude
by questioning what this means for the future of the gaming community as it continues to expand
and hypothesize where we can go from here.
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2. Video Game Content Analyses
In order to effectively analyze the dynamics of gender in video game culture, it is
imperative to understand the current climate of gender portrayals in modern video games.
Content analysis provides a viable research strategy to classify and categorize various trends in
media content. Content analysis is a form of descriptive quantitative research, and allows for the
subsequent development of more inferential qualitative work, such as seen in this review.
Fortunately, over the past decade or so, a plethora of content analyses have been conducted
looking at gamer culture. The majority of these analyses have focused specifically on console
games (e.g., PlayStation 2, Xbox, etc.), though a few look at other facets of the gamer
community beyond the games themselves. In these analyses, researchers surveyed numerous
media artifacts, such as the characters in video games, in order to observe and catalog any
noticeable patterns.
Based on the results of the currently available content analyses looking specifically at
characters within the video games themselves, games have been shown to systematically overrepresent three identifiable characteristics: males (Beasley & Standley, 2002; Downs & Smith,
2010; Dietz, 1998; Williams et al., 2009), whites (Jansz & Martis, 2007; Dietz, 1998; Williams
et al., 2009), and adults (Williams et al., 2009). These findings span over multiple generations of
video game consoles—from as early as the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis to
the more modern Xbox 360. Similarly, because there is an over-representation of males in
games, this also means that males are significantly more likely to be found in the role of the main
character of video games, many times as the hero. As previously mentioned, one conceivable
explanation for this gender distortion could be due to the demographics of the developers
themselves. If the 88.5% of game developers that are male are consistently creating characters
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that resemble themselves, it would help to explain the gender discrepancy in video game
characters—one that was consistently found to be over 80% male. A second plausible
explanation refers back to the climate depicted by Brenda Laurel. It could be that developers
create overwhelmingly more male video game characters due to the fact that they perceive their
target audience in gamer culture to be overwhelmingly male. However, to get a clearer picture of
gender in video games, we must examine the women as well.
When female characters were found to be present in games, they were significantly more
likely than their male counterparts to show more skin and be sexualized (Jansz & Martis, 2007;
Haninger & Thompson, 2004; Beasley & Standley, 2002; Downs & Smith, 2010; Dietz, 1998).
Throughout the analyses, the most commonly noted methods of sexualizing female characters
were through scant clothing, suggestive positioning, and exaggeration of female body parts,
particularly the breasts. Please see figures 2.1 and 2.2, screenshots taken directly from the
MMOG Rift: Planes of Telara, as an example of a female character showing more skin than her
male counterpart. In this situation, both characters serve the same function in the game (both are
warriors), yet the female warrior has significantly more skin exposed for reasons not made
explicitly clear. As a warrior, one would think that it would be prudent to protect as much of the
body as possible with sturdy armor. It should also be noted that in these images, the two
characters are technically wearing the same outfit, but apparently that outfit has different design
restrictions for male and female virtual bodies, as dictated by the designers of the game.
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Figure 2. 1 Male Warrior (Image retrieved directly from Rift: Planes of Telara on 23 October 2011)
Figure 2. 2 Female Warrior (Image retrieved directly from Rift: Planes of Telara on 23 October 2011)
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Similarly, female game characters have also been shown to have unrealistic body
proportions when compared to the average body statistics of real women (Martins et al., 2009;
Downs & Smith, 2010). This point is important to stress when dealing with virtual media. While
it may be true in older forms of media, such as television, that certain body types are
significantly over-represented, it is still the case that those over-represented body types are
within the bounds of physical reality. With the introduction of virtual worlds and video games,
body types now have the possibility to visually transcend the boundaries of the physical world.
Though this could, conceivably, seem like a hugely beneficial concept—such as giving virtual
humans wings to gain the ability of flight—it also presents the possibility of taking already
misrepresentative body types and skewing them beyond realistic proportions. As an example,
please see figure 2.3 below. This is the official rendered artwork of the character Mileena from
the recently released video game Mortal Kombat. Not only does this image reinforce the findings
concerning the sexualization of female characters through revealing outfits and emphasized
breasts, it presents the players with an extremely distorted view of the female body.
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Figure 2. 3 Mileena in Mortal Kombat (Image retrieved on 23 October 2011 from mortalkombat.wikia.com)
While it might also be the case that male game characters, too, have unrealistic body
proportions, researchers unfortunately have yet to explore this area. Because researchers might
initially look into gamer culture with a preconceived notion of its sexism, skewed portrayals of
men and masculinity might be easily overlooked. It is very possible that many male video game
characters are overly masculinized and have extreme body musculature to the point of breaching
realistic possibilities. From the same game as Mileena, figure 2.4 shows the character Johnny
Cage. While perhaps not as extreme as Mileena, this does show an example of what could be
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considered a misrepresentation of male body types. Another important caveat to consider is that
since there are so many more male characters in video games in general, it allows for more
varied portrayals of men simply on the basis of numbers. With so few women in games, the
hypersexualization and misrepresentation could have a more noticeable effect. It should also be
noted, however, that Johnny Cage represents one of the least clothed male characters in the
Mortal Kombat game. Most of the other male characters show less skin than he does. Mileena,
while also representing one of the least clothed female characters, is not unique among the fellow
female fighters. Many other female characters in Mortal Kombat wear similarly revealing outfits,
and also have equally buxom body types. I must also point out that Mortal Kombat is but one
example of this trend. Regardless, it is still crucial that masculinity and representations of men in
games not be overlooked, and future research on virtual gender should take that into account.
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Figure 2. 4 Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat (Image retrieved on 23 October 2011 from mortalkombat.wikia.com)
Additionally, video games still have the possibility to transmit messages about gendered
bodies without necessarily focusing on unrealistic body types. As an example, please see figures
2.5 and 2.6 below, depicting the male and female warriors from the MMOG Guild Wars. Similar
to the comparison of the warriors in Rift: Planes of Telara, the female warrior shows more skin
than her male counterpart for no specifically defined reason (although it is not as severe as the
difference in Rift). Similarly, the outfit worn by these two characters is nominally the same, yet
shows visible differences in their display—such as the male getting a shoulder pad and the
female having a skirt that is significantly shorter. The biggest difference here, however, is in the
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body types of the two characters. In both figures, the avatars have their “Body Scale” parameter
set to maximum, which means both of their bodies are as large as the game will allow them.
Also, both characters are warriors, meaning the characters value strength and endurance in their
gameplay mechanics. Despite these similarities, there are stark differences between the two body
types.
Figure 2. 5 Male Warrior (Image retrieved directly from Guild Wars.)
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Figure 2. 6 Female Warrior (Image retrieved directly from Guild Wars.)
As shown, the waist of the female character is literally half the size of that of the male.
Now, it is true that in the real world that, on average, women have smaller waists then men. That
said, it is important to bear in mind that both of these characters are supposedly meant to fill the
role of a warrior in battle—guarding the front lines through brute force. It seems to make sense
that the male warrior would have large muscles and a hefty constitution. What does not make
sense is why the female warrior seems to lack such characteristics. An immediate
counterargument is to say that virtual bodies are not restricted by role in the same way real
bodies are, thus arguing that a female warrior could essentially have any virtual build and still be
just as effective as a warrior. While this is true, it begs the question, then, as to why this specific
body type was selected as the one for female warriors. The male body type seems to have been
selected from a mechanistic standpoint—the body type matches the role that the character will
play. The female body type seems to have been selected from an aesthetic standpoint. This
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distinction is an important one. If men are designed for their mechanics and women are designed
for their looks, then what does this convey to gamers about gender, even subconsciously? The
same can be asked of Mileena in Mortal Kombat, which is a competitive fighting game. For a
character engaged in a fight to the death, it seems bizarre that she would be covering so little of
her body. Mileena and the two female warriors from the MMOGs are just three of many
examples that support the results found in the previous analyses.
Beyond looking at the game characters within the games themselves, researchers have
also looked elsewhere in the gaming community for content analysis. The over-representation of
males and the sexualization of females has also been found in video game magazine articles
(Miller & Summers, 2007; Dill & Thill, 2007), magazine game advertisements (Scharrer, 2004;
Dill & Thill, 2007), online video game reviews (Ivory, 2006), and video game cover images
(Burgess, Stermer, & Burgess, 2007). As previously mentioned, gamer culture involves much
more than just the video games. The types of sexualization found in these media artifacts echo
that of female characters in games—less clothing, more skin, emphasized breasts, and
submissive roles. These aspects of gamer culture provide an interesting insight into the thoughts
of the game industry on gender. Many times, artifacts such as magazine articles and game cover
images represent the first exposure that gamers receive of a game. In this sense, these images
signify the first impression that developers want gamers to form of their work. The results of
these content analyses thus force us to question whether or not the industry is knowingly and
willingly perpetuating the ideals of “man as hero, woman as object.” With the gamer
demographic becoming increasingly gender-balanced, it seems odd that marketers would want to
voluntarily alienate a growing part of their player base.
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Though the trends in game artifacts might seem baffling in light of the changing gamer
demographics, there are some changes worth noting. Interestingly, increasingly more female
game characters are now found in lead roles of video games (Jansz & Martis, 2007), a trend that
could conceivably be tied to the growing female player base. However, this growth in female
representation comes at a price. Female game characters only tend to occupy the lead role in a
game by balancing the aggressive, usually violent, nature of the hero with intense sexualization
and exaggeration of female body parts (Jansz & Martis, 2007; Grimes, 2003; Burgess, Stermer,
& Burgess, 2007). One plausible explanation for this trend is that developers see this duality of
female heroines as a way to market games to both male and female gamers. Female gamers get a
female lead character that is strong and independent. Male gamers get a female lead character
that is sexually appealing. The masculine qualities that have historically been equated with the
hero are now counterbalanced with feminine qualities that have historically been equated with
unadulterated sexuality and objectification.
The problem lies in the fact that these analyses show that male lead characters do not
need to struggle with this balance. If the reason for sexually exploiting female leads is to be able
to market to men while simultaneously marketing to women, then couldn’t the reverse be true as
well? Why haven’t male leads been sexually objectified in the same manner? Male gamers
would get a male lead character that is strong and independent. Female gamers would get a male
lead character that is sexually appealing. Yet, this doesn’t happen. As the analyses show, male
lead characters are significantly less like to be sexualized than their female counterparts, yet
significantly more likely to be main characters. By restricting objectification to virtual females,
developers are reinforcing a notion of sexism within their games. Perhaps less obvious,
developers are also reinforcing the belief that male characters shouldn’t be sexualized. Though
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most analysis focuses on constructions and distortions of virtual femininity, it is crucial to
remember that femininity has a relative component as well. Many characteristics deemed
feminine can simultaneously be considered non-masculine, and that distinction is important
because it gives developers and gamers the opportunity to define and construct masculinity
through distortions in femininity. Thus, once again, researchers must remain vigilant to the
function of masculinity in the production of virtual gender.
As shown, the available representations of gender, particularly of women, are largely
skewed from real-world depictions—the few women present in games are objectified,
commodified, and sexualized. Unfortunately, the extant video game literature shows a dearth in
explorations of masculinity and masculine representations. Future research should investigate
portrayals of men and masculinity in games, both in relation to femininity and as a construct on
its own. Additionally, it is important to continually analyze games as technology continues to
move forward because, as Beasley and Standley (2002) state, “video game research from as
recent as 5 years ago is questionable in its application to modern game versions” (p. 282). In
order to illustrate this point, I’d like put forth an example. Many video games, like films, release
sequels. The compilation of a video game and all of its sequels is normally called a series, and
the series is usually based on the title of the original game (though many times that title is
somehow held throughout the series itself). The Soulcalibur series has been around since 1998,
and provides a great example of the impact of technology on depictions of virtual gender. The
series contains four iterations, each one typically released about three years apart. The series also
has some recurring characters, and following these characters throughout the years helps to
exhibit the importance of technology in this issue. Please see figures 2.7-10 below to track the
development of the character Ivy Valentine through rendered images in each game.
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Figure 2. 7 Ivy Valentine in Soulcalibur (1998). (Image retrieved on 28 October 2011 from
soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Ivy)
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Figure 2. 8 Ivy Valentine in Soulcalibur II (2002). (Image retrieved on 28 October 2011 from
soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Ivy)
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Figure 2. 9 Ivy Valentine in Soulcalibur III (2005). (Image retrieved on 28 October 2011 from
soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Ivy)
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Figure 2. 10 Ivy Valentine in Soulcalibur IV (2008). (Image retrieved on 28 October 2011 from
soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Ivy)
It is imperative that researchers continue analysis, particularly as graphical and
photorealism increase the games’ capabilities to depict realistic characters. A study in 1998 using
Ivy from the original Soulcalibur as a media artifact, for example, would see severe setbacks in
its application to modern gaming. With Ivy, notice throughout the years the improvements in
textures and shadows, particularly in the face. Also of note is the correlation between increased
technological prowess and the size of Ivy’s breasts. Her most recent outfit also serves as another
strong example of a female character leaving very little to the imagination in terms of clothing.
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With this in mind, one particular area of research to explore is the degree to which
realism correlates with cultivation effects. Are gamers affected, consciously and subconsciously,
more strongly by characters with higher levels of graphical realism? Previous research has
shown that feelings of co-presence with an embodied virtual agent (computer-controlled being)
are lowest when there is a mismatch between behavioral and photorealism (Bailenson et al.,
2005). Most game character exhibit high behavioral realism—that is, they exhibit similar social
behaviors and cues to real-world humans. Perhaps as photorealism increases to match the high
behavioral realism, feelings of co-presence with game characters increases as well, thus
providing the foundation for game characters to more strongly influence gamers. Still, this is just
a hypothesis, and researchers should examine this possibility with further work. However, as I
will discuss in a later section, depictions of virtual gender have been found to have significant
real-world consequences. What has yet to be shown is whether or not these consequences are
exacerbated by increased technological capabilities of games.
With so many areas ripe for new and important research, it is clear that content analyses
have provided a strong foundation and impetus for further investigation. The currently available
suite of gender portrayals in video games should indeed be cause for concern. Game women are
consistently and religiously being sexualized and objectified, even though they only make up a
small portion of the game populace. With representation so scarce, the effects of these depictions
could conceivably be stronger than hypothesized. Future researchers must continue to analyze
the content of games, specifically working to include a greater focus on masculinity and to keep
up with the advances of modern technology.
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3. Transposition of Real-World Social Structures
Gamer culture is dualistic—it contains the real and the virtual, the game and the gamer,
the physical and the fictional. Because of this, it becomes key to examine both aspects of gamer
culture when trying to untangle a topic as complicated as gender. While we have seen that the
virtual side of gender is certainly warped in gaming, we must now turn to gender in the real
world and question if and how these cultural constructions have a defining impact on gamer
culture. Gender scholarship in men’s studies and female cultural stereotyping both provide viable
hypotheses for the construction and maintenance of distorted virtual gender. It must also be
noted, however, that this is not necessarily a one-way street, and the previously depicted gender
portrayals almost assuredly, in turn, affect the cultural notion of what it means to be a man or a
woman among gamers. Before delving deeper into this issue, I must first lay a few foundational
points.
According to the research of Byron Reeves & Clifford Nass (1998), people treat media as
if they were real people, upholding similar social and interactional rules as seen in everyday life.
A commonly cited example of their work is the politeness rule. Human users will rate a
computer higher if the computer asking for the rating is the one being used. If the computer asks
the human to rate a different computer, ratings are much lower. This phenomenon represents
something akin to humans treating a computer politely, as if it had feelings. Other research
within virtual worlds has shown similarly striking results. Blascovich et al. (2002) found that the
process of maintaining culturally-based social interactions holds true for virtual interactions
between two virtual people as well. If an individual is controlling a virtual avatar, such as
controlling a character in a video game, s/he will still respect many social conventions when
interacting with other virtual beings in the game world, such as maintaining a respectable
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distance as to preserve personal space. These findings holds especially true if the individual
believes that the other virtual being is controlled by a human and not a computer, such as the
interactions now seen all the time in online gaming. Additional research in virtual social
interactions has found more supporting evidence for the translation of many real-world social
structures into the virtual world: personal space was again found to be maintained between
avatars, lighter-skinned avatars were preferred over avatars with darker skin, males kept their
avatars further apart and showed less eye contact than females, and androgynous avatars were
considered less attractive than sex-typed avatars (DeWester et al., 2009). If people treat both
player-controlled and computer-controlled virtual characters with the same social rules as realworld interactions, how then can real-world perceptions and constructions of gender influence
the virtual world?
3.1. Nerd Masculinity
Simply stated, real-world Western society upholds a very specific, privileged view of
masculinity that R. W. Connell (1996) notably coins “hegemonic masculinity.” This view of
masculinity represents the dominant, idealized view of manhood for all boys and men within a
specific culture. According to Connell, there are specific and identifiable characteristics of a man
that occupies the hegemonic ideal—tall, attractive, wealthy, White, Christian, heterosexual,
athletic, and dominant, to name a few—and that occupying this ideal and maintaining this
characteristic identity has significant social advantages in society.
Though this ideal exists, qualitative research has shown that the actual picture for men is
significantly more nuanced. By examining the ideal, it seems understandable that consistently
achieving and maintaining the hegemony is not a simple task in most men’s lives. Interview
studies with adolescent boys demonstrate that many times, boys will actively reject the idea of
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the hegemony in developing their own masculine identities because they view it as far too
restrictive (Chu, 2004). With that said, those same adolescent boys also noted that the process of
rejecting the hegemony is not an easy one. If society privileges those who actively seek to
maintain a hegemonic masculinity, it rejects those who actively fight against it. Some gender
scholarship has even gone so far as to say that upholding a hegemonic masculinity in men is
damaging not only to those who fall outside it, but to those within it as well (Pleck, 1995). In its
ruthless pressure for stoicism and strength, the hegemonic ideal also emphasizes, possibly
inadvertently, emotional disconnection and a difficulty to form intimate relationships between
men. This theorizing provides a strong foundation for the well-known “boys don’t cry” mentality
seen in everyday life.
Taking it one step further, Michael Kimmel (1997) argues that masculinity is constructed
concomitantly and in relation with heterosexuality, making the two somewhat synonymous with
one another. This has a whole host of implications. Most importantly, this creates a basis for the
phenomenon that is commonly referred to as “gender policing” by building homophobia into the
infrastructure of modern masculinity. If heterosexuality is intimately tied with masculinity, then
a man can reinforce his own masculine identity through reinforcing his heterosexual identity. C.
J. Pascoe’s (2007) ethnography of high school adolescent males shows ample data supporting
this claim. She coins two terms that manifest in the gender policing among young men—
“compulsive heterosexuality” and “fag discourse.” The former deals with the aforementioned
ability to bolster masculinity through proving one’s heterosexuality. The latter describes a
specific type of common peer discourse in which young men uphold their own heterosexuality
and masculinity through attacking that of other young men. Pascoe compares the fag discourse to
a game of hot potato in which one must continually lob feminizing and homophobic epithets at
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other males in order to maintain face, especially if one such epithet had been previously
received. Thus, the prevailing force in contemporary construction of masculinity is one of fear,
shame, and extreme vigilance. As we will see, this has extreme consequences in gaming
communities.
Another noted observation found in qualitative gender research, and one that will help to
paint a picture of many male gamers, is that myriad forms of masculinity exist besides that of the
hegemonic ideal. (Connell, 1996; Thorne, 1993; Chu, 2004). If men cannot, or will not, conform
to the hegemony, then they instead must work to construct their own form of a masculine
identity. When thinking about the duality of gamer culture, this point becomes extremely
important when taken in conjunction with processes of media enculturation and social cognition.
If male gamers are consistently presented with a specific view of masculinity, whether through
male gamer characters or through the interaction of male game characters with other game
characters (both male and female), then it might become increasingly difficult for them to
construct a masculine identity outside of those repeatedly consumed images.
Thinking of Social Cognitive Theory as a series of grooves helps to understand this
argument. If the process of constructing an individual masculine identity is analogous to cutting
a groove through a hard metal surface, then the easiest paths to take would be ones which have
already been slightly worn down, already cut by some other means. Media, and in this case,
games, serve to preemptively etch out specific grooves along the metal. For men navigating this
process, this means that following the models about gender presented in consumed media would
be cognitively, and socially, easier to do. It would essentially be taking the path of least
resistance. To break away from the hegemony and construct and individualized masculinity is to
forego the precut grooves and work to etch out an entirely new path—a process that most
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assuredly requires significantly more effort. Therefore, even though multiple forms of
masculinity may indeed exist, some forms are much easier to construct than others, especially in
such a media-saturated culture such as gaming.
More recently, additional quantitative analysis has supported the notion that multiple
masculinities exist, and even found that these differing male images hold specific and defining
character traits (Smiler, 2006). One of these specified alternative masculinities found in this
research is that of the “nerd” identity. Thus, nerds embody a quantifiably distinct masculine
identity, and one that is not wholly in line with the hegemonic ideal. How, then, do nerds
navigate and embody an alternative masculinity, and what kinds of ideals are present in the nerd
masculinity that is seen in gamers and gamer culture?
In her qualitative research on nerd masculinity, Lori Kendall (1999) notes that nerds are
well aware of their status outside of the masculine hegemony and actively work to emphasize
their masculine qualities as result of embodying an alternative, and thus, non-ideal, masculinity.
Her interviews have shown that many times male nerds believe themselves to be “heterosexual
dropouts” who have forsaken sexuality and women, likely due to the presumed lack of sexual
competence in the real world that comes as a side-effect of constituting a marginalized
masculinity (Kendall, 1999; Kendall, 2000). Ironically, male nerds also seem to explicitly
stereotype female nerds as physically unattractive, even going so far as to call them such things
as “pasty skinned blubbery pale nerdettes” or “the Other White Meat” (Kendall, 2000). These
two findings taken in conversation with one another provide an enlightening look into the
mentality of a non-hegemonic male, and also allow for further hypothesizing about the current
status of gamer culture.
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If male nerds have supposedly given up on real-world women, then I would venture to
say that virtual and game women could still provide an avenue for sexual validation. It is
important here to remember the concept of compulsive heterosexuality, and that proving one’s
heterosexuality is equivalent to proving one’s masculinity. By symbolizing an alternative
masculinity, nerds are inherently predisposed to compulsive heterosexuality since their status as
nerds is already an assault on their masculine identities. Kendall’s findings seem to illustrate that
male nerds do not turn to female nerds as a way to be compulsively heterosexual, at least not
theoretically. The reason for this is not entirely clear, but I would hypothesize based on the
previous work with compulsive heterosexuality that an attractive woman is more valuable in
proving the heterosexuality of a man than an unattractive woman. Thus, nerds must seek
compulsive heterosexuality elsewhere—enter the virtual women. If the data reviewed in the
previous section are anything to go by, female video game characters provide an overtly sexual
opportunity for nerds to be compulsively heterosexual, especially since previous research has
supported the idea that real world social conventions are upheld in virtual worlds with virtual
entities.
Another interesting caveat that makes the gamer situation so unique is that many times
these virtual women are not controlled by another human being. In game terms, these virtual
characters are usually called non-playable characters, or NPCs. In the real world, compulsive
heterosexuality through objectifying women can be met with resistance from those very women
who are being objectified, and rightfully so. If female NPCs are being objectified by male
gamers, the computer artificial intelligence might not be programmed to have the character
respond to such interactions. In fact, should the developers choose to do so, some female NPCs
could be programmed to actually encourage this kind of sexual objectification. Additionally, if
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male gamers objectify these game characters outside of the games and in the real world, such as
in forum communities, there is nothing these NPCs can do to defend themselves. Thus, female
NPCs, and particularly highly sexualized ones, become very easy targets for marginalized men to
enact compulsive heterosexuality to prove their masculinity.
Along those lines, another interview study looked specifically at men who had
experienced relationship abuse, and found that abused men felt emasculated due to a lack of
control in their relationships, and that this control was a central factor to a masculine identity
(Migliaccio, 2001). The results of these interviews buttress Connell’s theory of the masculine
hegemony. A man embracing a hegemonic masculinity should place a very high premium on
control and dominance. Therefore, a breach of this control is literally a breach of a masculine
identity. Again, these findings acquire a new salience when dealing with the duality of gamer
culture. Simply put, virtual women and game avatars are many times entirely in the player’s
control in the most literal sense possible. A playable video game character is literally at the
command of the gamer holding the video game controller. That sense of control is rarely
(thankfully) found in real-world relationships.
Perhaps gaming has provided an unintended avenue for sexual validation of marginalized
males. If game developers did realize this, it certainly would have provided an extremely
lucrative marketing strategy. In fact, many games are now following a trend of increasing the
amount of customization, another form of control, which players have over their game avatars.
Modern games such as Dragon Age: Origins and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim allow gamers to
completely construct their avatar from head to toe. Are the cheekbones too flat? That can easily
be changed. Is he not muscular enough? Let’s fix that. Are her breasts too small? That’s not a
problem. Having such a deep level of control over bodies—bodies that are gendered—can
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conceivably play into the compulsive drive for a masculine identity. As an example of the level
of depth of many avatar creation systems, please see figure 3.1.1, a screenshot taken of the
character creation system in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, released in 2006. As shown, the six
sliding scales in the image represent a few of the options available to tweak just the avatar’s
mouth. With that much detail, the range of possibilities in contemporary avatar creation is simply
unprecedented.
Figure 3.1. 1 Character creation system in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Retrieved on 6 November 2011 from
ign.com)
Additionally, many games add customization beyond just the bodies of avatars. The
previously mentioned character Ivy Valentine comes from a series (Soulcalibur) that has started
implementing outfit customization as well. Now after a gamer is done “Barbie-fying” his
character, he can then put her into an outfit that leaves very little covered. Because customization
is in place for both male and female game characters, it would be interesting, and frankly
prudent, for future researchers to delve into these worlds and discover the specific limitations set
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forth by these customization systems, and whether or not those limitations are equal for male and
female characters. The example in section 2 of the warriors from Rift: Planes of Telara would
lead me to hypothesize that even though customization is available for both genders, the
programming restricts certain items to certain genders, or instead has gender-specific restrictions
on items that are nominally available to both genders. The increasing level of control and
customization in contemporary gaming adds another layer to the ways in which male gamers can
navigate the process of developing a masculine identity through unrestricted control in gaming.
In addition to the qualitative work seen thus far, quantitative data from Vandello et al.
(2008) demonstrate that masculinity as a fundamental part of a man’s identity is precarious in
nature. These researchers fielded opinions about masculinity and femininity from both men and
women and compared the results. Unsurprisingly, both men and women viewed masculinity as
something that is never permanent or innate, and that needs to be constantly upheld, especially in
the eyes of others. In contrast, femininity was found to be thought of as something natural that
comes with time. Many viewed femininity in women as a marker of maturity, likened to
fecundity. For men, masculinity does not come with age, but must rather be earned through some
sort of ritual or rite. Pascoe would argue that the daily rituals of compulsive heterosexuality and
fag discourse function as ways for men to earn masculine status. A third finding from Vandello
et al. provided quantitative support for the previously mentioned gender-role strain experienced
by men who occupy, or attempt to occupy, the masculine hegemony. The data show that a man
who feels that his gender role is called into question is likely to react with high-level stress
responses, most notably aggression. Additionally, stress responses were found to be much lower
in women who had their femininity questioned. Therefore, if masculinity is something that needs
to be consistently upheld, and if nerds embody a masculinity that has already been questioned in
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the real world, then nerds are essentially consistently responding to real-world gender role
threats. Thus, sexualizing and objectifying virtual female characters can serve as a practical and
efficient method to reaffirm and maintain a precarious nerd masculinity.
As mentioned, policing the gender of other men is another effective way in preserving
one’s own masculine status. Kimmel describes how being homophobic is essentially the
equivalent of being masculine, especially seeing as how emotional distance between men is a
fundamental aspect of a hegemonic masculinity. Pascoe would agree, and demonstrates that the
fag discourse is a pervasive technique utilized among groups of men to establish masculine
dominance and heterosexuality. Among gamers, this practice is not uncommon, and, in fact, the
frequently competitive nature of online gaming could even imaginably heighten a need to
employ this policing behavior. Because upholding masculinity is so strongly tied to upholding
heterosexuality, gamer culture is rigidly antagonistic to gay male gamers. Though the
misrepresentation of and discrimination against gay characters in gaming is a topic too large for
the scope of this review on gender, it is absolutely fundamental that this homophobia be
examined as a way in which heterosexual male gamers construct a hyper-heterosexual identity
that is consequently extremely damaging to women.
One gay male gamer, who goes by the handle halogayboy, enacted a small exploratory
experiment in which he played the multiplayer online first-person shooter Halo 3 using the
handle xxxGayBoyxxx as his gamertag (the username used in online games over Xbox Live).
Without any provocation, he received an influx of crude, homophobic, and blatantly offensive
remarks from the other gamers who literally knew nothing about him other than his gamertag.
Simply having such a gamertag was apparently enough of an impetus to drive these other male
gamers to literally harass him. He then compiled a sample of the recorded remarks and posted
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the recording to YouTube. The following are examples from the YouTube clip of some of the
comments that he received from the other gamers:
“Hey gay boy are you a faggot or what?
Gay boy I hope you die and burn in hell.
Hey gay boy, what’s the biggest cock you ever took?
Get that cock out of your mouth gay boy before you speak.
Fuck you, gay boy, you piece of shit.
Gay boy, quit sucking off dudes and play.
I hope gay marriage never gets passed. Have fun being single.
Shut the fuck up, you’re still a faggot.
I want to hang you because you’re gay.”
(Retrieved on 12 November 2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6alOnuN-wCY)
This unabashed harassment of this gay gamer is exactly the type of behavior that Pascoe
describes in the fag discourse. Damaging the heterosexuality, and thus the masculinity, of
another male bolsters the masculine identity of the one doing the harassing. In fact, defending the
gay gamer in this situation would be stepping outside of the bounds of the hegemony. Therefore,
these other gamers cannot openly defend halogayboy without calling into question their own
precarious manhood in the eyes of the other male gamers in the online game room. As a result,
this kind of social interaction is extremely difficult to combat because it requires males to
willingly allow themselves to have their gender identity questioned by other men.
The most important take away from the rampant homophobia in gamer culture, however,
at this in the realm covered by this review, is its relationship to the concurrent sexism. By
vehemently dehumanizing gays in gamer culture, gamers reinforce the belief that male gamers
are visibly heterosexual, and that they will go to any and all lengths to prove this. As shown,
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compulsive heterosexuality is one of those ways to do so. As we will see in the next section, girl
gamers, as a result, experience a similar situation to that described of halogayboy. Homophobia
serves in a dialectical relationship with sexism to reaffirm the tenuous masculinity of many male
gamers through the sustainment of heterosexual male dominance hierarchy.
When taken together, the extant gender scholarship on masculinity can help to elucidate
many factors that could very well be perpetuating a culture of sexism in gaming. It is easy to
immediately blame game developers for producing sexist media, but the picture is actually much
larger. Just like the real world, gender permeates ubiquitously throughout gaming. Putting
masculinity research in conversation with game scholarship is the first step in teasing out this
curious social system. That said, there is also more at play here than just the construction and
maintenance of masculine identities among male gamers. With a growing female gamer base,
women are becoming an increasingly larger voice in the gaming community. In order to fully
understand the cultural construction of gender, we must look at the women as well.
3.2. Stereotyping and Virtual Females
Since people interact with media and virtual entities using similar social behaviors as
when interacting with other people in the real world, it can be assumed that widespread social
phenomena, such as stereotyping, prejudice, and conformity, transmit through and exist in
mediated experiences within virtual worlds as well. Recent work looking into racism in virtual
worlds shows that this transposition of social ills seems to be occurring, and that it’s manifesting
in many aspects of these worlds (Pace, 2008; Kafai, Cook, & Fields, 2010). With that said, the
literature on prescriptive and proscriptive stereotyping of women helps to add to the conversation
on gamer culture and further explicate the distorted depictions of gender in the gamer
community.
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In order to begin, it is crucial that I explain the theoretical basis on which much of gender
stereotyping relies. Expectation States Theory asserts that people behave differently towards
different people based on the diffuse cultural stereotypes associated with the other person’s
categorical identities, such as race, gender, etc. (Ridgeway, 1993). These diffuse stereotypes are
based on cultural schemas, and represent generalized beliefs about overall competency of certain
groups of people. In Western cultures, being male and being White are two common diffuse
status characteristics that positively influence people’s expectations of an individual.
Consequently, people generally have lower expectations of women’s competence. It is also the
case that having individual beliefs that go against these cultural schemas does not necessarily
change the outcome of the performance expectations that an individual forms. An individual will
still form performance expectations based on what s/he perceives others believe to be true, even
if that same individual disagrees with such beliefs. In psychology, this phenomenon is known as
the false consensus bias.
In addition to diffuse cultural status characteristics, specific status characteristics also
play a role in the formation of performance expectations. An example of a specific status
characteristic is that women are generally thought to be better at child rearing. Therefore, if a
situation were to involve such a skill, people might form higher performance expectations for a
woman than for a man because the benefit from the specific status characteristic of child rearing
capabilities outweighs the drawback of having the less favorable diffuse characteristic of being a
woman. This becomes increasingly salient when talking about gamer culture because men have
the specific status characteristic of being more competent at technology-related endeavors. Thus,
when gamers form performance expectations of one another, which they are likely to do as
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contemporary gaming puts an increasing focus on social interaction, female gamers have both a
negative diffuse status characteristic and a negative specific status characteristic.
This, in turn, sets the groundwork for stereotyping against women who break societal
gender expectations. Status characteristics allow individuals to form expectations that then
continue to influence future behavior. For example, if a male gamer has exceedingly low
expectations for any female gamers in the community, he is likely to subsequently act more
confident and dominant in relation to them. This social striation leads to exactly the performance
outcomes that the male gamer expected in the first place—the women are more likely to be
reserved and self-conscious of their abilities, and thus underperform. This is a psychological
phenomenon known as stereotype threat (see Steele & Aronson, 1995). In the end, it’s a selffulfilling cycle, making it extremely difficult to break. This cycle sets up what is known as
prescriptive and proscriptive stereotyping of women—beliefs about what women should and
should not be, respectively. Typically, these ideas are applied to describe the situation facing
women in the real world. However, once again, I’d like to apply this theory to unravel the
situation with virtual women a little bit further.
Women in powerful positions have been shown to experience a negative backlash when
displaying leadership and agentic behavior (Eagly & Carli, 2007; Rudman & Glick, 2001). More
commonly known as the “double bind,” women in power consistently need to balance the
prescriptive stereotypes of women with the prescriptive stereotypes of a leader. Unfortunately,
these two sets of expectations do not go hand-in-hand. Women are expected to be reserved,
empathetic, communal, and relationship-oriented. Leaders are expected to be agentic, aggressive,
competitive, and achievement-oriented. If a woman embodies too many of the qualities expected
of a woman, then she is deemed an incapable leader. If a woman embodies too many of the
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qualities expected of a leader, then she is deemed a miserable person to work with. Male leaders
do not need to struggle with this double bind because the prescriptive stereotypes of men fall
very much in line with those of a leader, and also fall very much in line with that of Connell’s
hegemonic masculinity.
Not coincidentally, the characteristics commonly associated with a leader are the same
traits typically seen in the main characters of video games. Since, many times, games are trying
to present characters as realistic humans, it would make sense that many of these defining
character qualities would be found in these characters. Therefore, the restrictions of prescriptive
and proscriptive stereotyping against women could conceivably help to make clear the enormous
gender disparity in video game characters. If strong, agentic women are deemed unlikable as
characters, then game developers have the power and the opportunity to simply stop creating
them. If the role of the main character, usually the hero of the story, requires that the character
have such agentic traits, then this makes it all the more likely for that character to be male. This
allows the character to fit both the prescriptive stereotypes of his role and his gender, and this
appropriateness allows him not to see a negative backlash for his personality. Female characters
do not have this luxury.
Similarly, additional research has found that if a person in power criticizes a subordinate,
the subordinate is significantly more likely to rate the person in power as incompetent if that
person is a woman (Sinclair & Kunda, 2000). This has implications not only for NPCs with
which male gamers must interact, but also for any online gaming in which a female gamer
assumes a position of power or authority among cooperative or competitive play. As we will see
shortly, female gamers receive extraordinarily harsh recoils from male gamers in online games,
many times even unprovoked. For men, the value of their presence in gaming is tied to their
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ability and competence in the game. For women, competence seems to be overshadowed by the
impenetrable focus on her gender.
Where, then, does this leave female game characters? The prescriptive stereotypes of
women coincidentally align very well to those of supporting characters. Thus, the results of the
content analyses in section 2 depicting a large role disparity between the genders become a little
clearer. Additionally, this adds a level of nuance to the previously noted phenomenon of female
lead characters requiring intense sexualization. In the real world, women who display agentic
behavior in positions of power receive negative feedback. Real world women can rectify this
feedback by embracing more of the prescriptive gender stereotypes placed on them, thus also
questioning their legitimacy as a leader. Virtual female characters have another viable option for
dealing with prescriptive stereotyping—sex. I would venture to say that in the large majority of
situations in the real world in which a woman in power is struggling to balance conflicting
expectations, sexualizing herself is likely not a feasible solution to the matter if she values her
job. For virtual females, however, filling the role of sexual object gives male gamers a valuable
reason to keep them around, especially when thinking in terms of compulsive heterosexuality.
Accordingly, the reason for the intense sexualization of females in lead roles could be to allow
agentic female game characters a place in a male-dominated culture without extreme backlash.
Male gamers might be less likely to complain about a female lead character if she is consistently
easy on the eyes. Thus, a new sort of premium is placed on sexual aesthetics for female
characters that is conspicuously absent for male characters. While male characters might have
aesthetic expectations, the data from section 2 seem to show that they must be manifesting
differently and that they are not explicitly sexual.
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Research in the male-dominated field of medicine has shown that women are generally
viewed as valuable, at least to the men in power, but only until they start challenging the
structural dominance set in place by those men (Carnes & Bigby, 2007). In light of gamer
culture, strong women in leading roles that are not sexualized under the heterosexual male gaze
could very well be viewed as a threat to the structural dominance of male gamers in the
community. Sexualizing these characters is a way to both make female lead characters remain
valuable to men, while simultaneously removing a sense of agency from women in the
community in general, thus upholding men’s position of power. This is also a very insidious
social phenomenon because on the surface it makes it seem as if the male gamers are
appreciative of the presence of women in the community, but in reality it is only a very specific
kind of women—one that upholds the current gender hierarchy.
It is at this point that the duality of gamer culture once again becomes important. If this
requirement for sexualization of women began with female video game characters, it has most
certainly crept out into the real-world aspects of gamer culture as well. To highlight this, I’d like
to turn to two examples. First, as mentioned, gamer culture has many facets outside of just the
games themselves. This includes things like forums, magazines, etc. One area of interest is
gamer television. G4 TV (formerly TechTV) is a television station that has historically been
geared toward gamers and technology enthusiasts. On this network, the one show that most
specifically focuses on video games is called X-Play, and it centers on reviewing to-be-released
and recently released games for the viewers. Since its inception, X-Play has had two main
hosts—Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb. Please see figures 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 to view pictures of
Sessler and Webb, respectfully, taken directly from the X-Play main website.
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Figure 3.2. 1 Adam Sessler of X-Play (Retrieved on 10 November 2011 from g4tv.com/games/xplay)
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Figure 3.2. 2 Morgan Webb of X-Play (Retrieved on 10 November 2011 from g4tv.com/games/xplay)
While it can be stated that physical attractiveness is a matter of opinion, I would venture
to say that Morgan Webb is unequivocally more attractive than Adam Sessler. Now, this isn’t to
say that having more attractive female hosts is something unique to gamer culture. One look at
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Live with Regis and Kelly is enough to show that isn’t the case. What is interesting instead is the
interaction that Webb has with the community. In her featured spread in Maxim (2004)
magazine, she states, “People are like, 'Do you really play video games?' It freaks them out.” The
first point to make is that Sessler has never done anything even closely related to a provocative
magazine spread, which could be a statement of his lack of physical attractiveness or of the
overall lack of Maxim-style magazines that feature men instead of women (which, of course, is a
statement in and of itself). But returning to Webb’s comment, why is it that gamers are so
surprised that an attractive female plays games? On the one hand, she provides more evidence
supporting Kendall’s previous claims that male nerds implicitly stereotype female nerds as
unattractive. Webb breaks that stereotype, which could help explain the response from gamers.
That said, there is something else at play here.
The presence of Webb as a co-host on X-Play hints that in order for a female nerd to
occupy a position of leadership within the community, she needs to be sexually attractive. This
mirrors the same situation facing the development of female game characters. If Webb were just
as attractive as Sessler, she likely would not have received the same level of acceptance and
respect due to the prescriptive stereotypes of women that Webb must work with and Sessler can
avoid. Not only does Webb’s presence provide evidence of an aesthetic requirement for women
in gaming, she also serves to reinforce it. By interviewing in magazines like Maxim, she
validates the right of gamers to uphold this aesthetic requirement. This is not to criticize Webb
for her actions. In fact, Webb should have every right to be part of this culture and be physically
and sexually attractive. There is nothing inherently wrong with doing so. The problem lies in the
fact that physically attractive female gamers like Webb are the ones getting the most widespread
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recognition and acclaim from the community. It legitimates the belief that female gamers can
only be welcome in the culture if they submit to the male heterosexual gaze.
Echoing this idea are data from a recently formed blog dedicated to documenting the
harassment received by female gamers within online gaming communities. The title of the blog,
Fat, Ugly, or Slutty, makes a mockery of the three most common insults from male gamers that
are thrown at these women. This provides interesting insight into the minds of gamers who seem
to feel little remorse in lobbing these remarks. The first two themes, fat and ugly, provide further
support for Kendall’s conclusions—male nerds believe female nerds to be unattractive. The final
theme, slutty, provides evidence that male gamers view the presence of women in the gaming
community as a venue for sexual objectification and exploitation. See the following three figures
as examples of messages received by female gamers that were submitted to the blog. Please keep
in mind that in all three of these cases, these messages were unprovoked.
Figure 3.2. 3 "Fat" insult. Note that the chronology of messages is from the bottom up. (Retrieved on 11
November 2011 from fatuglyorslutty.com)
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Figure 3.2. 4 "Ugly" insult. Notice the racism as well. (Image retrieved on 11 November 2011 from
fatuglyorslutty.com)
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Figure 3.2. 5 "Slutty" insult. (Image retrieved on 11 November 2011 from fatuglyorslutty.com)
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In all three of these cases, none of the perpetrators had ever seen the three women playing
the games. They had no idea what these women looked like in the real world, yet still felt
comfortable enough to make these judgments. Additionally, even though the blog focuses on
insults related to those three general themes, there are plenty of other insults documented as well.
Please see figure 3.2.6 as an example of some of the more generically sexist, and frankly crude,
insults that female gamers continually put up with.
Figure 3.2. 6 Sexist insult. Again, note that the chronology is from the bottom up. (Image retrieved on 11
November 2011 from fatuglyorslutty.com)
Clearly, this is not an overwhelmingly safe place for female gamers. The takeaway point
from this is not necessarily that gamer culture is sexist, but rather that the ways in which gender
is constructed in all aspects of this culture provide an atmosphere in which sexism can flourish
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and is extremely difficult to overcome. Marilyn Brewer’s (1988) model of interactional
impression formation provides an additional theoretical foundation for the maintenance of
sexism in gamer culture, one that goes well taken in context with Expectation States Theory.
According to Brewer’s model, when individuals first interact, the impressions they form of one
another is based on top-down psychological processing—things like stereotyping, generalizing,
categorizing, etc. This occurs simply because it is cognitively more efficient to do so. Thus, in
gamer culture, specifically in virtual communities, when two people interact, their immediate
impressions of the other individual are based on the categorical assumptions of what it means to
be a gamer. If the content analyses and treatment of female gamers by men are anything to go by,
it would seem that the underlying generalization is that gamers are men.
Research into computer-mediated communication (CMC) shows some theoretical
reasoning as to why gamers might assume other gamers to be male. The Social
Identification/Deindividuation (SIDE) Model of Mediated Communication (Walther, 1997)
states that people use group similarities and differences in order to make predictions about
identity when other identifying cues are absent, such as the visual cues that are so commonly
taken for granted in the real world. Walther states:
This tendency to project stereotypical attributes on others occurs precisely because of the
lack of individuating information communicated by the medium and is promoted by the
deindividuating conditions of CMC, such as physical isolation and the nonverbal masking
that accompanies it. (1997, p.346)
By looking at gamer culture from a strictly numerical basis, it would make sense why
most gamers would assume others to be male—there are simply more male gamers in the
community than there are female, and it has historically been even more male-dominated than it
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is now. Similar to the SIDE Model, Prototype Theory (Jacobson, 1999) purports that certain
individuals in a social category represent that category as a whole, thus serving the role of
metonymic model or exemplar. This would mean that prominent figures in the community would
set the prescribed identity assumption for all other members. Again, since the community is
predominantly male, it is likely that most well-known figures, such as professional gamers, are
male as well. Additionally, metonymic models might appear in other media, such as the
stereotypical nerd seen in cinema or cable television. Because of the lack of physical visual cues
in the virtual world, gamers must many times rely on other sources of information to form
subconscious impressions of other gamers. Stereotyping and categorical generalizations serve to
cognitively fill in those information gaps.
Returning to Brewer’s model, then, the presence of a knowingly female gamer thus
presents most gamers with a sense of cognitive dissonance. Female gamers break the categorical
assumption of the gamer identity, so it causes gamers to rethink the impression formed of those
individuals. Here is where Brewer’s model identifies an important turning point in impression
formation. When an individual receives discrepant information about another individual that
cannot be ignored, such as a gamer’s gender not matching that of the stereotype, the individual
forming the impression will either personalize or individuate the other person in question.
Personalization is the process by which a person creates a unique personalized category for the
individual of whom the impression is being formed. Unlike the rest of the impression formation
process, this is a bottom-up psychological process, which means the focus is on accuracy rather
than efficiency. Personalizing an individual allows one to cognitively process all unique and
identifying characteristics of the other person, thus allowing for the slow and gradual breakdown
of stereotypes. However, as Brewer notes, personalization only occurs when the two individuals
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in question have a high level of investment in the relationship. In online video games,
interactions with other players are many times brief, inconsequential, or competitive. Thus, the
likelihood of personalizing a female gamer is rather low.
Because most interactions in the virtual worlds of online gaming are of low investment,
the impression formation process remains in the mode of top-down (stereotypical) processing in
the course of individuation. Individuating another person means stating that the person who
presents discrepant information is nothing more than an exception to the rule. In this case, female
gamers would be viewed as the exception. This viewpoint consequently reinforces the initial
stereotype in the first place—if female gamers are the exception to the rule, then the rule must
still be that gamers are male. Since low-investment interactions are more common, individuation
makes it extremely difficult to enact changes in overall cultural perceptions. This also provides
another explanation for why Morgan Webb might constantly surprise people with the fact that
she games. Even if more female gamers are entering the community, it might not help as much
if they are consistently individuated as exceptions by those in power.
The transformation of cultural attitudes could plausibly be changed if enough gamers
were forced to personalize more female gamers. In fact, one could argue that though social
interactions in online games might be typically low-investment, interactions of players with
NPCs, particularly in story-driven games, might be of higher investment. This means that the
personalization process might actually occur for female NPCs that play a key role in the storyline
of some games. That said, after looking at the available representations of women in section 2,
this might not actually be a good thing. If the only women that gamers are personalizing are
those who are heavily sexualized, submissive, and non-agentic, then the personalization process
Maisonave 51
will not help to wear down any stereotypes of women in the community. In fact, it unfortunately
might have just the opposite effect.
Structural stereotyping against female gamers and video game characters helps to explain
the under-representation of women in games, especially strong women in main roles that are not
sexualized under the heterosexual male gaze. As shown, the difficulty of breaking these
stereotypes is paramount, specifically since they have formed the foundation upon which gender
is constructed both virtually and in the real world in this culture. As an additional roadblock,
because the gamer community is steadily becoming more gender-balanced with more and more
women starting to game, men might be likely to ignore structural barriers to virtual gender
equality in what Deborah Rhode (1999) calls the “no problem” problem—men see the increased
entry of women into the community as a marker that sexism is no longer a problem. The belief is
that if the culture were so damaging and antagonistic to women, then women wouldn’t want to
be part of the community. Since their numbers are increasing, it must mean that sexism is not a
big issue. Clearly, with the data shown in this review and with the consequences to be discussed
in the next section, sexism is far from benign in this culture, and the “no problem” problem could
pose a significant stall towards the goal of gamer equality.
In order to make the most progress toward building a safer community for gamers
regardless of gender, a few steps should be taken. First, developers need to create a wider variety
of female game characters, specifically ones that are of high investment to the players so as to
lead to personalization of the character. More personalizable characters that do not conform to
prescriptive stereotypes of women would help to undermine the power that those stereotypes
have in the community at large. An additional step that needs to be taken is that more male
gamers need to step outside of the binds of compulsive heterosexuality and claim that they will
Maisonave 52
not tolerate this overt sexism and discriminatory behavior in their community. This is not an easy
thing to do. As discussed, stepping outside of the hegemony has social repercussions, but as
more men succeed in doing so, the easier the process is for men in the future (think back to the
example of cutting grooves into metal). Future scholars should continue to critically analyze the
ways in which constructions of gender manifest both physically and virtually in gamer culture.
For a culture that is rapidly expanding, it is imperative that we understand all potential impacts it
might have on the lives of its members.
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4. Media Effects of Virtual Gender
With the foundation now laid, we have the opportunity to examine exactly what kinds of
effects result from associating with gamer culture. Rather unsurprisingly, the skewed portrayals
of women within gaming have clear negative effects on gamers. Much research has focused on
the effects of exposing individuals to sexualized female virtual bodies. The results are harrowing.
First, seeing these sexualized bodies has demonstrated a greater tolerance of both sexual
harassment (Dill, Brown, & Collins, 2008) and rape myths (Fox & Bailenson, 2009). The kinds
of beliefs described in these studies are those similar to “she secretly wanted it” or “she shouldn’t
have dressed like that if she didn’t want this to happen.” This victim-blaming mentality most
assuredly shows up in the examples provided by Fat, Ugly, or Slutty, and it could very well be
the case that male gamers believe female gamers bring this sort of attention to themselves merely
by openly identifying as female in such a culture. Removing the blame from the perpetrators of
this harassment and placing the responsibility back onto the victims serves as a mechanism to
reaffirm male dominance within the culture. Thus, the women in the community are receiving
the brunt of a culture that has been created by misrepresentative virtual characters that are,
ironically, mostly created by men.
In addition to the increased tolerance of sexist behaviors, research has similarly shown
exposure to sexualized virtual females leads to increased likelihood in men to harass women
(Yao, Mahood, & Linz, 2010). Therefore, not only does the culture make harassment easier to
perform and more openly accepted, it also makes it significantly more likely to happen. With the
available representations of virtual women so limited and so sexualized, it makes it so that the
harassment seen in Fat, Ugly, or Slutty is literally commonplace behavior. Many times, it isn’t
even as if gamers have a choice in the representations of women they are exposed to. Refer back
Maisonave 54
to the example of the warriors in Rift: Planes of Telara in section 2. In this case, the available
armor for the two genders is literally programmed to have the female show more skin than the
male. Being a female means showing more skin, and there is no way around that until the player
has access to different armor that hopefully covers up more. Thus, in games where customization
plays a major role, male gamers have the opportunity to objectify their own female characters.
When customization is not an option, female game characters still end up objectified on behalf of
the game developers and the game mechanics that selectively differentiate between the two
genders. In both cases, male gamers are consistently presented with virtual bodies that, in turn,
result in increased frequency of harassment toward women in the community.
Following from those results, men have been shown to resort to sexual harassment when
their gender identity is threatened, especially for highly masculine-identified men (Maass et al.,
2003). If male gamers view the presence of women in the community or the presence of strong,
non-sexualized female characters as a threat to their gender identity, this could then explain
another reason why the current situation exists and is so difficult to disrupt. As discussed in
section 3, male gamers already occupy a status outside of the masculine hegemony, and
accordingly are sensitive to threats to a masculine identity that has already been threatened as a
basis of status. Because male gamers need to resort to strategies such as compulsive
heterosexuality and the fag discourse, they might be predisposed to resort to harassment
behaviors in situations of gender identity threat. An additional level of gender threat is added in
the competition of online gaming. When gamers are paired off competitively against one
another, winning, and thus demonstrating competence, can be a way to uphold masculinity.
Losing, and especially losing to a female gamer, could be seen as an enormous blow to a male
gamer’s gender identity, resulting in a higher likelihood of harassment behaviors. Please see
Maisonave 55
figure 4.1 to show an example from Fat, Ugly, or Slutty of this happening. According to the blog,
this message was sent by a player in response to losing in the popular game Call of Duty: Black
Ops.
Figure 4. 1 Loss-induced Harassment (Image retrieved on 11 November 2011 from fatuglyorslutty.com)
With a culture so built upon sexual objectification and harassment, it is no surprise that
research has documented a lower sense of self-efficacy among women who are exposed to
sexualized female avatars (Behm-Morawitz & Mastro, 2009). This data provides support for the
self-fulfilling prophecy of Expectation States Theory and for the negative effects of stereotype
threat in marginalized subgroups. If women need to fight for their place in a structurally sexist
community, it becomes increasingly harder to do so if their self-worth is religiously mocked in
front of them, both in the real world on channels like G4 TV and in the virtual world with the
exploitation of female characters and underrepresentation of women in general. Women have an
additional barrier to overcome in competing against male gamers, meaning it is a consistent
uphill struggle to be taken seriously in a community of which they wish to be a part.
Maisonave 56
With such documented evidence showing the distinct negative effects of exposure to
sexualized virtual women, it would seem as if the situation for female gamers is extraordinarily
bleak. However, it is important to note that not all aspects of virtual representation are negative.
Though the duality of gamer culture might be a major factor in its cultural gender distortion, it is
also its most valuable asset when it comes to the possibilities it enables. The Proteus Effect
describes how an individual can experience real-world personality benefits, such as increased
confidence, through embodying a tall or attractive avatar in the virtual world (Bailenson et al.,
2008). If anything, this data should provide a stronger push for a more diverse cast of virtual
representations in video games, especially that of women. If embodying a sexualized female
avatar results in reduced self-efficacy in women, then perhaps embodying a strong, nonsexualized female would rather have an empowering effect, leading to increased self-efficacy
and confidence. As future research delves further into representations of masculinity, it would be
interesting to see if hypermasculine portrayals of men have similar effects on the self-efficacy of
male gamers. Perhaps seeing a strong and competent male who isn’t hyper-muscularized or
blatantly sexist would allow more male gamers to feel secure in their masculine identities
without having to resort to sexually exploiting and harassing the women, and the gay men, in the
community.
In fact, the use of avatars allows individuals the freedom to explore the idea of their ideal
selves (Bessière, Seay, and Kiesler, 2007). While there certainly are problematic uses of avatar
creation systems, such as male gamers creating the “ideal” female character through sexual
exploitation, there are also other facets of customization that merit further exploration. Virtuality
allows for an unprecedented level of self-expression, and rather than pigeonholing virtual
characters into set stereotypes, it could instead be much more fruitful to allow for various types
Maisonave 57
of identity exploration. In his ethnography of the virtual world Second Life, Tom Boellstorff
(2008) describes the limitless possibilities for users to explore gender, sexuality, and other facets
of their identity that might not condone themselves to exploration in the real world. Boellstorff
uses the example of a transgender woman that he met in the virtual world that used her avatar in
Second Life as the first step towards questioning her gender identity and eventually transitioning
in the real world. As games become more social, they can provide a venue for new types of
social exploration. Though the structure of online social interaction might, on the one hand, lend
itself to the types of verbal abuse seen in Fat, Ugly, or Slutty, a phenomenon that is commonly
referred to as the Online Disinhibition Effect (see Suler, 2004), it also has an immense amount of
potential in helping individuals to explore and test out new and intriguing identities that might
otherwise not be possible in the real world.
Taking this idea one step further, research has shown that virtual worlds can be used as a
way to reduce negative stereotyping through embodying a vastly dissimilar avatar (Yee &
Bailenson, 2006). This, then, could provide another viable mechanism for alleviating the sexism
in gamer culture, at least in the virtual worlds themselves. If men were required to play as a
female character in some games, especially strong, non-sexualized ones, then perhaps male
gamers would more readily sympathize with female gamers and overall stereotyping would be
reduced. This change falls in the responsibility of the developers, for they are the ones who make
the design decisions concerning the main characters in the games they produce. With more
females in lead roles, the likelihood of a male gamer playing as one would increase. It would be
even more of an educational experience if embodying a female avatar in online social
interactions led some of the male gamers to receive the same types of harassment that so many
female gamers receive without provocation. This doesn’t even necessarily need to be from
Maisonave 58
another human player. Game developers could develop characters and storylines that deal with
issues of sexism and harassment and have the player control a female character that struggles
with these topics. With so many modern games focusing on topics like war, it could do a world
of good for developers to shift gears and tackle other important social issues.
Thus, the media effects of video games are both problematic and full of hope. If the
industry continues to head in the direction it is currently driving, then the future outlook of
gamer culture does not look too promising. With the overrepresentation of sexualized female
avatars, sexism and harassment in gamer culture is reinforced and easy to do. Game developers
should heed the research demonstrating the possibilities of virtual reality in positively shaping
the lives of gamers. As progress continues, researchers must be sure to continually analyze the
effects of exposure to various virtual entities. A common theme throughout this review, and one
that rears its head again in studying media effects, is the veritable dearth of research looking into
the effects of hypermasculinized male avatars on individuals. While it might be true that the
presence of powerful female leads is a threat to men’s gender identities, it could also be true that
consistently visualizing an avatar that represents an unachievable masculine ideal could also feel
like a gender identity threat, thus incurring similar effects to those seen in the harassment studies.
Clearly, more work needs to be done, and researchers should make sure to keep vigilant as the
community expands and changes.
Maisonave 59
5. Conclusion
In a culture that presents gender in a unilaterally distorted way, one with documented
negative effects, where, then, does this leave gamers, and what can be done from here?
Interviews with girls who identify as gamers have shown that girl gamers are attentively aware
of the sexism in games, very much desire a more balanced portrayal of gender, and even restrict
their playing time due to the dominance of males in the community (Schott & Horrell, 2000).
After seeing the kind of treatment many female gamers receive at the hands of male gamers
simply for being a female, these results are surely not unfounded. It is ironic to see results like
these yet still see developers continuing to perpetuate the media artifacts that reinforce this type
of behavior. If developers had the intention of trying to increase the overall playing time of their
games, thus driving sales, it would seem wise to create games that wouldn’t cause a portion of
their player base to restrict the time they spend playing. Especially now, with the increasing
amount of women in the community, game developers needs to take into consideration the
possibly alienating effects their games might be having on some of their players.
In fact, the culture of sexism has gotten so bad that many times female gamers will use
male avatars in online social games as a way to escape from unsolicited advances and blatant
harassment from other males (Hussain & Griffiths, 2008). The same research found that,
sometimes, even male gamers will abuse the current cultural climate and use female avatars to
manipulate and benefit from other male gamers (Hussain & Griffiths, 2008), such as a man
pretending to be the “damsel in distress” as a way to elicit free assistance or gain free treasure
from more “chivalrous” gamers. Interestingly, this seems to go against the results that found that
embodying a dissimilar avatar would lead to reduced stereotyping. It could be a matter of intent.
If male gamers choose to specifically embody a female avatar, they might be doing so for the
Maisonave 60
wrong reasons, as stated above. If a male gamer were required to play as a female character, such
as having a female main character in a story-driven game, then perhaps the results would lean
more towards greater tolerance. Either way, the fact that women need to literally hide their
gender in order to feel safe in this community is unnerving, particularly as the community and
subsequent culture grows at an increasingly rapid rate.
Obviously, gender plays an enormous role in games and the gaming community. I have
hypothesized a few possible reasons for the social dynamics in gaming that create, skew, and
perpetuate distorted portrayals of gender, resulting in a cultural climate that legitimates and
reinforces sexism and harassment. These stereotypical gender representations, particularly those
of sexualized virtual women, have significant and, many times, negative effects on gamers, and
this situation should not be taken lightly. Future research needs to focus specifically on the
representations and constructions of masculinity in games, and how hypermasculine portrayals
are adding to this virtual social system of gender inequality. Increased diversity among both
game developers and game characters could go a long way towards making the community a
safer and healthier place for all gamers. At the end of the day, when it comes to a multi-billion
dollar giant that is continuing to captivate a massive amount of people, a safer and healthier
place is all we can really ask for.
Maisonave 61
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