Women in Gaming: A Subculture of Gender Discrimination

Over the past years, the quantity of women who engage in video games has significantly increased, and today, women make up almost half of the gaming population worldwide. Despite this fact, women are still the subject of discrimination in the gaming scene. They do not feel safe in online spaces and they prefer to hide their genders when playing to avoid experiencing bias from other male players. This toxic environment is mainly a result of the way most video games are designed. Although the proportion of women who are working as game developers is gradually improving, it is still mainly dominated by men. The gender discrepancy behind the scenes has contributed to female characters in video games being underrepresented and oversexualized. This is unappealing to many women, who often claim that they feel uncomfortable playing as or viewing women in revealing outfits with exaggerated and unrealistic body proportions that are so obviously designed for the male gaze. In addition, structural issues within video games further contribute to toxic game environments. Women play video games as well and as often as men do, but are usually kept out of online gaming spaces. This is done through targeted harassment or by creating a toxic culture in which women are made to feel unsafe or uncomfortable. Although most games claim to have policies that do not tolerate harassment of other players, very few have an effective way to reinforce this policy. This then creates a cycle, the most toxic players can freely discourage women and other minorities from playing by harassment so only those who can tolerate this behavior are left. This results in a community that tolerates or encourages misogyny. Women who still play games despite the constant harassment and sexism, speaks not only to the tenacity of women gamers, but also to the fact that players can still find enjoyment and benefits from playing despite the drawbacks. Women who play games regularly and spend time in online spaces enjoy the companionship, healthy competition, stress reduction, and  excitement that video games provide, enough to keep on still engaging with everyone else despite the constant insults and threats received from other gamers. Hopefully, with the growing population of women in the gaming world, may their presence continue to improve online spaces and encourage the industry to be more proactive from protecting its players from discrimination and harassment.