TL;DR you aren’t being targeted because you’re a woman. It’s because you game
I explained this to another person before: many gamers are too competitive for their own good. That means they want to win at nigh any cost. A simple “tactic” is make the other team make mistakes by influencing them. The best way to do so at a distance is by breaking their spirit. So you act like any attacker: you find weaknesses, attack vectors, ways to inflict psychological pain.
Most of the time there are very few things you know about the enemy besides their pseudonym. So you attack them with bog standard things, generic things, because they are generic. However, every tiny thing you find out about them increases the attack surface. Their location, their voice, typing speed, character choice, character set (colors, theme, items, …), etc. Perceived gender is just on other thing to add to the list.
Of course, if the gamer is losing, they are never the problem. Fault lies in others. Hence, even team mates become the enemy and the same rules apply. “If only everyone were like perfect like me, we would win”.
It doesn’t help that online gaming is just another digital activity. People behave worse when they can dehumanize the other party and that’s what the internet does. It makes it easier to act worse. Additionally, gamers who spend a lot of time online, are not good at socializing, hence the chance of them having a partner is lower than average. To make matters worse, spending so much time in such toxic communities only propagates the behavior.
Even if the sex split were 50/50, each gender were represented equally, or the gaming space were dominated by non-males: they are just as human and I bet the problem of toxicity would persist. Humans are nasty, disgusting, and evil. We are mostly egoistic, self-centered beings that socialize because it helped us survive for millennia. However, that need to socialize is dwindling quickly.
If we want to tackle toxicity in gaming, there are many, many things outside of gaming that play a role which make it impossible to conceive a gaming only solution.
I’ve seen this harassment all the time in non-competitive games though. Even on the PS3 playing GTAIV, when my character was a woman, people would follow me, two different times people added me, no one had when I was a male character. One of them messaged me asking if I was actually a woman lol. Obviously this is just anecdotal, but there are plenty of stats about this sort of thing.
If your view is that most people are self-centered and nasty I think you maybe need to socialize with different people. Like you said the anonymity of the internet dehumanizes people and encourages more toxic behavior, I don’t believe most people really are so toxic though.
If your view is that most people are self-centered and nasty I think you maybe need to socialize with different people. Like you said the anonymity of the internet dehumanizes people and encourages more toxic behavior, I don’t believe most people really are so toxic though.
It comes from real life experience. Growing up where I did was eye-opening to human misery and cruelty. Sadly, other people had it even worse than I did. I’ll stop there before I get too negative.
I think your point of view is interesting but flawed. It’s very obvious you’re not a woman, frankly. I’ve been playing video games since I was a child, and the absolute truth is, women absolutely face more harassment than male counterparts. That’s a blog, but it links multiple studies, and you’re welcome to review them yourself.
I’ve often found the argument that you’re making is usually the Call of Duty defense (“it’s not that gamers are racist, it’s just that once we know your race, that’s what we attack”) and it’s often used by the privileged to try and claim that everyone is a target, everyone is a victim, if you can’t handle it then stop playing.
Oh no, there are definitely racist and misogynist gamers out there, no doubt. It’s just that women are easily identifiable by their voice (or being confused for 10 year old kids), which stands out. It’s the same as having another skin color, get-up, car, that the majority of your area - it stands out.
The article you posted doesn’t mention (nor link to a study) about how harassment changed with voice changers, which I would be interested in. My guess would be that it becomes comparable to that experienced by male or male sounding gamers - which the article doesn’t mention either.
It’s very obvious you’re not a woman, frankly.
I actually quit playing online games with people who aren’t friends and when I did, the mic was mostly off + other players were muted very often. Do you still think I’m not a woman?
Some male pro Valorant players did an experiment with voice changers. They basically came to the conclusion that the came is almost unplayable as a woman.
TL;DR you aren’t being targeted because you’re a woman. It’s because you game
I explained this to another person before: many gamers are too competitive for their own good. That means they want to win at nigh any cost. A simple “tactic” is make the other team make mistakes by influencing them. The best way to do so at a distance is by breaking their spirit. So you act like any attacker: you find weaknesses, attack vectors, ways to inflict psychological pain.
Most of the time there are very few things you know about the enemy besides their pseudonym. So you attack them with bog standard things, generic things, because they are generic. However, every tiny thing you find out about them increases the attack surface. Their location, their voice, typing speed, character choice, character set (colors, theme, items, …), etc. Perceived gender is just on other thing to add to the list.
Of course, if the gamer is losing, they are never the problem. Fault lies in others. Hence, even team mates become the enemy and the same rules apply. “If only everyone were like perfect like me, we would win”.
It doesn’t help that online gaming is just another digital activity. People behave worse when they can dehumanize the other party and that’s what the internet does. It makes it easier to act worse. Additionally, gamers who spend a lot of time online, are not good at socializing, hence the chance of them having a partner is lower than average. To make matters worse, spending so much time in such toxic communities only propagates the behavior.
Even if the sex split were 50/50, each gender were represented equally, or the gaming space were dominated by non-males: they are just as human and I bet the problem of toxicity would persist. Humans are nasty, disgusting, and evil. We are mostly egoistic, self-centered beings that socialize because it helped us survive for millennia. However, that need to socialize is dwindling quickly.
If we want to tackle toxicity in gaming, there are many, many things outside of gaming that play a role which make it impossible to conceive a gaming only solution.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
I’ve seen this harassment all the time in non-competitive games though. Even on the PS3 playing GTAIV, when my character was a woman, people would follow me, two different times people added me, no one had when I was a male character. One of them messaged me asking if I was actually a woman lol. Obviously this is just anecdotal, but there are plenty of stats about this sort of thing.
If your view is that most people are self-centered and nasty I think you maybe need to socialize with different people. Like you said the anonymity of the internet dehumanizes people and encourages more toxic behavior, I don’t believe most people really are so toxic though.
It comes from real life experience. Growing up where I did was eye-opening to human misery and cruelty. Sadly, other people had it even worse than I did. I’ll stop there before I get too negative.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
I think your point of view is interesting but flawed. It’s very obvious you’re not a woman, frankly. I’ve been playing video games since I was a child, and the absolute truth is, women absolutely face more harassment than male counterparts. That’s a blog, but it links multiple studies, and you’re welcome to review them yourself.
I’ve often found the argument that you’re making is usually the Call of Duty defense (“it’s not that gamers are racist, it’s just that once we know your race, that’s what we attack”) and it’s often used by the privileged to try and claim that everyone is a target, everyone is a victim, if you can’t handle it then stop playing.
Oh no, there are definitely racist and misogynist gamers out there, no doubt. It’s just that women are easily identifiable by their voice (or being confused for 10 year old kids), which stands out. It’s the same as having another skin color, get-up, car, that the majority of your area - it stands out.
The article you posted doesn’t mention (nor link to a study) about how harassment changed with voice changers, which I would be interested in. My guess would be that it becomes comparable to that experienced by male or male sounding gamers - which the article doesn’t mention either.
I actually quit playing online games with people who aren’t friends and when I did, the mic was mostly off + other players were muted very often. Do you still think I’m not a woman?
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Some male pro Valorant players did an experiment with voice changers. They basically came to the conclusion that the came is almost unplayable as a woman.
Male Valorant Pros Experience Misogyny While Using Voice Changer
Link to Youtube Video (Native Language is Spanish)
I referenced the same thing in another post! :)
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0