“Why Are You Playing Games? You Are a Girl!”: Exploring Gender Biases in Esports

Chasing theDragon(Magazine): Gender Erasure Through Discourse inDragonMagazine, 1978–2005

“…This article expands existing research on topics related to analog gamer masculinity and interpretations of misogyny that exist in the tabletop role-playing world, while also noting discussions of discourses in TRPGs (Cover, 2014;Martin et al, 2015;Stang & Trammell, 2020;Trammell, 2018b). The sidelining of women discussed herein, I argue, was not historically done as a purposeful attempt to create or reinforce a circumstance of "no girls allowed."…”

“…As noted previously, the traditional role player is not seen through a hegemonic lens and is linked very closely to the "nerd" stereotype (Kendall, 2000). However, while the traditional role player is not considered representative of a hegemonic or "high" masculinity, the role player subculture still prizes techniques and behaviors that are associated with hegemonic masculinity (Martin et al, 2015). This means spaces dominated by role players, such as private games or conventions, could be potentially categorized as what is known in sociology as male preserves.…”

“…TRPGs have been scrutinized for reinforcing and supporting more male-oriented goals as disseminated by society (Garcia, 2017;Martin et al, 2015;Stang & Trammell, 2020;Trammell, 2018b). Moreover, recent research has investigated the claim of tabletop role-playing as a male preserve (Dashiell, 2020).…”

“…In the case of protection of female players, imagery served as an encouragement to make female players feel comfortable and to be cognizant of the things that male players might say around them. Men are encouraged, both explicitly and implicitly to be "nicer" to girls and to in some way "overcompensate for all the stigma that female gamers go through" (Madden et al, 2021). Overall, the four articles called upon what was assumed to be male DMs to overthink the problems that might be encountered by a female player, with the assumption that she would be outnumbered and uncomfortable, reflective of an internalized sense of a male preserve at the gaming table.…”

The Troubling Cups: Making Trouble at Work about Inequalities in Pay.

“…As trouble, we loosely define problems that must be addressed from every society which they cannot/should not look away from them. Work within HCI has engaged with such troubles, for example on how race, gender and class influence design choices by engaging black students in the ideation process [Rankin and Henderson 2021], by exploring gender biases in esports [Madden et al 2021], or by understanding how HCI can facilitate openness and visions for the futures of sustainable communities [Chopra 2019]. Particularly, for gender issues, HCI has turned into a range of cultural theories, grouped under the term feminist HCI [Bardzell and Bardzell 2011], which are closely linked to feminist theory, empathy for participants, and the goal to decrease/remove one-sided views from social life.…”