Gender in 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 , 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 Maisonave 2 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, S o c ia l 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 Maisonave 3 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 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 Maisonave 4 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 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 w r it e s : Maisonave 5

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 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, Maisonave 6 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, , 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 over- represent 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 Entertainment System and to the more modern . 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 Maisonave 8 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. Maisonave 9

Figu re 2. 1 Male Warrior (Image retrieved directly from Rift: Planes of Telara on 23 October 2011)

Figu re 2. 2 Female Warrior (Image retrieved directly from Rift: Planes of Telara on 23 October 2011) Maisonave 10

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 . 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. Maisonave 11

Figu re 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 Maisonave 12 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. Maisonave 13

Figu re 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 Maisonave 14 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.

Figu re 2. 5 Male Warrior (Image retrieved directly from Guild Wars.) Maisonave 15

Figu re 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 Maisonave 16 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 . 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. Maisonave 17

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 Maisonave 18 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. Maisonave 19

Figu re 2. 7 Ivy Valentine in Soulcalibur (1998). (Image retrieved on 28 October 2011 from soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Ivy) Maisonave 20

Figu re 2. 8 Ivy Valentine in Soulcalibur II (2002). (Image retrieved on 28 October 2011 from soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Ivy) Maisonave 21

Figu re 2. 9 Ivy Valentine in Soulcalibur III (2005). (Image retrieved on 28 October 2011 from soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Ivy) Maisonave 22

Figu re 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. Maisonave 23

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 Maisonave 25 distance as to preserve personal space. These findings h o ld s 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 p la y e r -controlled and computer-controlled virtual characters with the same social rules as real- world 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 s o c ie t y.

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 Maisonave 26 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 s c h o la r s h ip 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 Maisonave 27 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 Maisonave 28 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 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. Maisonave 29

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 e n t it ie s .

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 Maisonave 30 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 Maisonave 31 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 Maisonave 32 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 Maisonave 33 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 3 using the handle xxxGayBoyxxx as his gamertag (the username used in online games over Xbox Live).

W it h out 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 Maisonave 34 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. There fo r e , 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 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 relatio nship 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, Maisonave 35 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. Maisonave 36

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 Maisonave 37 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 self- fulfilling 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-o r ie n t e d. 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 Maisonave 38 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 Maisonave 39 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 fe ma le 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 w it h 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. Maisonave 40

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.

I t 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— and . 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. Maisonave 41

Figure 3.2. 1 Adam Sessler of X-Play (Retrieved on 10 November 2011 from g4tv.com/games/xplay) Maisonave 42

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 Maisonave 43

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 Maisonave 44 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 wh o s e e m 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) Maisonave 45

Figure 3.2. 4 "Ugly" insult. Notice the racism as well. (Image retrieved on 11 November 2011 from fatuglyorslutty.com)

Maisonave 46

Figure 3.2. 5 "Slutty" insult. (Image retrieved on 11 November 2011 from fatuglyorslutty.com) Maisonave 47

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 Maisonave 48 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 So c ia l

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 Maisonave 49 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 Maisonave 50 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.

Maisonave 53

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 wit hin 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 : Black

Ops.

Figu re 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, non- sexualized 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 , 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 powerfu l 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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