Fighting Gendered Battles

On Being a Woman in a Contemporary Gaming Community

Bibliographic Data

ID2940696
AuthorsSaralyn Mckinnon-Crowley (0000-0002-5553-1744, University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume49
Issue1
Pages118-142
Publication date2020-02-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary Ethnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0891-2416 • E-ISSN: 1552-5414
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0891241619864405
OpenAlexW2963331899
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited17

This scholarly personal narrative (Nash 2004) draws on the author's experiences as a woman in a male-dominated gaming community. In such a space, being a woman who plays the game problematizes notions of gender for both the author and for her most-often male opponents. When playing the game, she operates in a liminal space between expert and outsider because of her gender identity. At the same time, her gender troubles her men opponents. She discusses her struggles for acceptance in this community and how her notions and enactment of gender have changed as a result of her experiences. In the article, the author explains the social norms of the game and the demographic breakdown of the game's players; to accomplish this, the author shares stories from her time as a player

Aesthetics · Art · Game studies · Identity (music · Liminality · Media studies · Multimedia · Narrative · Sociology · Video game · Anthropology · Digital Games and Media · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access