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Video gaming – still a man’s world?

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Mariam Zaidi
WVoN co-editor

Although women make up about 42 percent of online gamers in the US, they are still largely unaccepted by men.

According to a BBC report, they are very often subject to online abuse, much of which is derogatory, sexually degrading and sometimes violent.

One gamer, Jenny Haniver, has set up her own website, Not in the Kitchen Any More, which contains phrases from the audio transcripts she records when playing Call of Duty on Xbox live. And they don’t make for easy listening.

Nor is her website a one-off. Another – Fat, Ugly or Slutty – was set up in the hope of making people think twice about sending “creepy, disturbing, insulting, degrading and/or just plain rude messages to other online players, usually women”.

Recently, an online video series called Extra Credits launched a campaign targeting Microsoft’s Xbox Live online gaming platform, describing it as “the service most often referenced when harassment in our community comes up”.

As a result Microsoft vowed to improve its service.

Strangely, 60% of women say that gaming allows them to relax and de stress.  Men on the other hand seem more attracted to the competition aspect, particularly violent games.

But when video game writer Jennifer Hepler was quoted in a post earlier this year that the gaming experience would be better if there was an option to skip the combat section of a game, she was subjected to vicious abuse online.

In another incident at a gaming competition called “Cross Assault” a male player made indecent comments about a female competitor to her face.

The man later claimed that sexual harassment was part of the culture of the gaming community and defended his use of phrases like “rape that bitch” as expressions for defeating another character.

Is it any wonder that video gaming is still so much a man’s world.

 

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