Female Gamers’ Experience of Online Harassment and Social Support in Online Gaming: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Female gaming is a relatively under-researched area, and female gamers often report experiencing harassment whilst playing online. The present study explored female experiences of social support while playing online video games, because of the previous research suggesting that females often experience harassment and negative interactions during game play. Data were collected from an online discussion forum, and comprised posts drawn from 271 female gamers. Thematic analysis of the discussions suggested that a lack of social support and harassment frequently led to female gamers playing alone, playing anonymously, and moving groups regularly. The female gamers reported experiencing anxiety and loneliness due to this lack of social support, and for many, this was mirrored in their experiences of social support outside of gaming. The female gamers frequently accepted the incorporation into their gaming of specific coping strategies to mitigate online harassment, including actively hiding their identity and avoiding all forms of verbal communication with other players. These themes are discussed in relation to relevant research in the area, along with recommendations for future research and consideration of possible explanations for the themes observed.

The interplay of individual differences, norms, and group identification in predicting prejudiced behavior in online video game interactions

“…As well, video games have the potential to improve intergroup relations by providing opportunities for intergroup contact (Adachi, Hodson, Willoughby, Blank, & Ha, 2016; Adachi, Hodson, Willoughby, & Zanette, 2015). However, video games are also known for negative effects, such as the impact of sexualized female characters on attitudes toward women (Burgess, Stermer, & Burgess, 2007; Dill, Gentile, Richter, & Dill, 2005; Downs & Smith, 2010) and the toxic environment and frequency of prejudice in online video games (Ballard & Welch, 2015; Fox & Tang, 2017; Gray, 2012; Kuznekoff & Rose, 2012; McLean & Griffiths, 2019; Ortiz, 2019; Sliwinski, 2007).…”

“…In a 2012 survey, 79.3% of all respondents reported that sexism is prominent in the gaming community, while 63.3% of female respondents reported having been the subject of sex‐based harassment while playing online video games, and 35.8% of female respondents reported they had quit playing temporarily because of sexism experiences while playing video games (Matthew, 2012). A study by the Pew Research Centre (2014) found that of all online platforms, video games are perceived as the least welcoming to women, and work exploring women’s responses to harassment in online games shows that they often withdraw from the social environment and play alone to avoid toxic behavior (Fox & Tang, 2017; McLean & Griffiths, 2019). Experimental studies show a similar pattern of toxic behavior toward female gamers.…”

A Taxonomy of Coping Strategies and Discriminatory Stressors in Digital Gaming

“…Direct sources of discrimination in online gaming run the gamut of discrimination's usual suspects. Cited forms include slurs, epithets, targeted threats, stereotypes, and targeted harassment or exclusion from other players, developers, and games themselves (Gray, 2012b;Fox and Tang, 2017;McLean and Griffiths, 2019;Ortiz, 2019). Indirect sources stem from systemic, historical sources, evidenced in the under-and misrepresentation of BIPOC (Kafai et al, 2010;Dietrich, 2013;Srauy, 2019), women and non-binary players (Williams et al, 2009;Shaw, 2015;Behm-Morawitz, 2017), LGBTQIA2+ players (Gray, 2018;, disabled players (Gibbons, 2015;Holloway et al, 2019), and older players (De Schutter and Vanden Abeele, 2010).…”

“…Players hide their racial and gendered axes through avatar and username selection, masking their digital self-representations to avoid harassment (Gray, 2012a,b;Fox and Tang, 2017;Ortiz, 2019;Vella et al, 2020). Players withdraw from online socialization altogether, forgoing chat, microphone use, and tools for gaming's social benefits (McDaniel, 2016;Fox and Tang, 2017;McLean and Griffiths, 2019;Vella et al, 2020). Players with non-Euro-American accents and/or neuro-physical atypicalities employ similar strategies to control their self-disclosure Ortiz, 2019;Rankin and Han, 2019).…”

“…Of those that do, Gray's works (Gray, 2012a(Gray, ,b, 2018 and Ortiz (2019) provide unparalleled insight to how black players experience, manage, and resist heteropatriarchal White supremacist norms in gaming. Two studies focus on the coping strategies of (predominantly) White women (Fox and Tang, 2017;McLean and Griffiths, 2019), while Vella et al (2020) show that women cope with targeted misogyny through manipulating their online appearance or "masking." The exceptional depth of these studies is owed to their restriction to specific intersections of player identities, affording for an ecologically valid account of plurality in experiences.…”