02LEAN

Professor [redacted]

COMP112

3/11/2021

Why Are Women Treated So Horribly In Gaming Spaces?

As unfortunate as this may be, misogyny permeates so much of our everyday life. From large institutions that make our decisions & create our laws to small stores that charge more for women’s products, there’s so many things designed to make things harder for women. Thus it shouldn’t be surprising that in the gaming community these issues would be prevalent. However the frequency at which women have to endure all-around deplorable behavior in gaming is turned to 11, I don't know a single woman that plays games without some story about being harassed or treated differently for solely being a woman. This isn’t limited to online spaces in the slightest, women at physical gaming events have stories of abuse, assault, etc. At the time this essay is being written, professional Overwatch player Jay ‘Sinatraa’ Won was outed for abusing his ex-girlfriend today. It’s a problem exacerbated by anonymity, indifference from those in power, & deplorable behavior being excused as “gaming/competitive culture.” This isn’t limited to gaming from the player side either, since GamerGate people have been paying more attention to these kinds of issues in the gaming-centric workplace as well.

The internet has done wonders for communication but also has given people a way to escape consequences for the things they say. Generally speaking you’re not associating an inflammatory comment on a youtube channel with a person, but behind that username is a person who made the conscious decision to be hateful or out of line. Because we associate it with a username before associating it with a person, & we have no way to tie that username TO a person, it allows people to get away with saying ridiculously hateful things with little to no consequences. This is one of the problems presented with anonymity, people are more likely to act worse if they know there’ll be no consequences for how they act, and simultaneously because the other people online are usernames before they’re people, it's much easier to SAY hateful things & think nothing of them. In an article from psychologicalscience.com, Joe Dawson wrote that “eye contact may mark a major factor that separates aggression and cordiality (Dawson).” Women [and marginalized people in general] get the brunt of this as when there’s no consequences, hate starts to become targeted & personalized. Just a quick glance into Twitch chat whenever a woman on stream is confirmation enough.

Women don’t always come out concerning physical events because they don’t trust the system that gets nothing done. In the stats for the 2010-2014 Justice Department numbers from the Rape Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) it says that less than 1% (exactly 0.6%) of reported rape cases led to incarcerations. The gaming community acts as a microcosm of this sort of thing, as many allegations that come to light are not followed up on, letting abusers run free in the scene typically scot-free. Professional Street Fighter player Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo benefited from this firsthand, as multiple documents and videos came out of him brutally beating & choking his wife. He subsequently dropped out of the Capcom Cup in 2018, however returning to compete in EVO, the largest fighting game tournament in the world, the next year. Welcomed back with open arms, even the official EVO account praised him, calling it a “triumphant return”. While the wife got a restraining order placed on him, it sets an unfortunate precedent for women that the community let these kinds of people that actively hurt and treat them awfully compete with no consequences. It would be the understatement of the year to say that it’s scary to see that nothing gets done on the tournament organizer end.

Competitive culture would not be competitive culture without trash talk. It’s in the spirit of competition to endure some jeering & harmless teasing surrounding the game. However as stated in the first paragraph, trash talk surrounding women becomes very targeted very quickly, and normally isn’t targeted in the same way for men. Occasionally the misogyny comes in the form of inequality in insulting men vs women, in that people will come down super hard on a woman for losing, but will not come down on men for losing in a similar or sometimes exactly the same way. When called out about it people like to lean on the fact that “it’s in the spirit of the game” or “it’s just trash talk, if you can’t handle it you shouldn’t play” which are both flimsy statements themselves. It should not be a requirement to feel disrespected solely because of one’s gender to participate in gaming events, it wouldn’t make sense to assert that it’s an integral part of the space. Women should be able to enjoy playing games without having to worry about people nitpicking or scrutinizing them in ways that they would not criticize a man.

According to a journal posted on DOAJ.org, one of the issues women playing games face is “the annoyance of the game not being suited to them or what they would naturally select to play. (Lopez-Fernandez)” which, in my opinion, presents a microcosm of larger issues in the gaming community as a whole. The people we’re trying to design for or protect aren’t being heard. Obviously it would be annoying to navigate a space not designed with “you” in mind. Women need to be listened to concerning how unsafe or uncomfortable they feel surrounding gaming, & should be at the forefront of the conversation considering they’re the ones in the crosshairs concerning it. It would be disingenuous to speak on marginalized issues without getting feedback from the marginalized. Going forward we can definitely make spaces more inclusive & safer for everybody involved by speaking up when we see something that doesn’t feel right, or checking somebody for saying something out of line. As a culture we have to start deeming this behavior unacceptable, as left unchecked it lets people know it’s okay to act like that, thus creating more problems down the line. You don’t necessarily have to call it like you see it, but at least call it when you do.

________________

Works Cited

Lopez-Fernandez, Olatz, et al. “Female Gaming, Gaming Addiction, and the Role of Women Within Gaming Culture: A Narrative Literature Review.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 10, 10 July 2019, doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00454.

Dawson, Joe. “Who Is That? The Study of Anonymity and Behavior.” Association for Psychological Science - APS, 30 Mar. 2018, www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/who-is-that-the-study-of-anonymity-and-behavior.

Walker, Ian. “Street Fighter V Player Exits Capcom Cup Due To Results Of Domestic Violence Investigation.” Kotaku, Kotaku, 16 Nov. 2018, kotaku.com/street-fighter-v-player-exits-capcom-cup-due-to-results-1830494154.

EVO(@EVO). “With his triumphant return, @INFILTRATION85 defeats @kazunoko0215 to become the #EVO2019 Champion in #SamSho! Stay tuned! #MK11 top 8 is next! http://twitch.tv/evo” August 3rd 2019, 10:25. Tweet.

Dam, Andrew Van. “Analysis | Less than 1% of Rapes Lead to Felony Convictions. At Least 89% of Victims Face Emotional and Physical Consequences.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 6 Oct. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/06/less-than-percent-rapes-lead-felony-convictions-least-percent-victims-face-emotional-physical-consequences/.