They don’t mean to hurt

Female gamers’ reluctance in recognizing and confronting sexism in gaming as an online-offline juxtaposition

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7477117
AutoresZiyu Deng (0000-0001-8470-1100, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen28
Número1
Páginas270-288
Fecha de publicación2024-10-29
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaNew Media & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14614448241287831
OpenAlexW4403871812
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas62

Female gamers have long suffered from gender-based online abuse in the gaming community. Apart from commonly observed quitting and gender-masking behaviors from female gamers, this study explores what female gamers understand as sexism, how female gamers react to it, and why they choose certain reactions instead of others. Findings show that female gamers are keenly conscious of normalized sexism in gaming culture, and thus often prioritize preventing personal interaction with strangers online, resulting in their shared preference for gaming with trusted acquaintances, which makes gaming an online-offline juxtaposition. Shouldering gender norms in doubled dimensions of gaming and specific real-life relationships, female gamers thus become reluctant to recognize and confront less violent sexism from male acquaintances. Female gamers’ strategic self-protection, although gaining them relatively safer gaming spaces, also consolidates sexism in gaming, and further suggests gaming as a critical social space for reproducing broader gender inequalities

Internet privacy · Magnetic reluctance · Social media · World Wide Web · Applied Psychology · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Engineering · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Psychology · Social Psychology