Male Chauvinism in the Gaming Industry: Hyper-sexualization of women in E-Sports

(image downloaded from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/league-of-legends-soraka-janna-2808111/ )

TW: misogyny, sexual violence

A watershed moment for the gaming industry was witnessed during a 2014 hashtag campaign. The #GamerGate movement was a war against feminism in video games. It included a deluge of rape threats, sexual harassment, and sexist remarks. The movement was about maintaining the game's purity by preventing the influx of social issues like inequality and sexism. After this movement, issues like gender justice in the gaming industry formed a part of popular discourse, leading to some improvements in E-sports leagues and gaming events. However, the problem of sexism in E-sports persists to a large extent. This article will analyze the abhorrent practice of displaying female game characters in an overly sexualized manner which has led to an exclusion of women from such gaming platforms.

While many universities have started to provide E-sports scholarships and construct E-sports arenas on their campuses to promote gaming, it is essential to recognize the sexual cyberviolence, harassment, and technology-enabled abuse commonly occurring through gaming. Although Article B, provision 9 of the IESF Statute mentions the objective of Non-discrimination and Female Athlete Promotion in E-sports, it does not set out any specific regulations to be adhered to.

The cultures surrounding E-sports are characterized by the hegemonic, geek, and athletic masculinities. In such an environment, a woman player is 'othered' as she is often at crossroads of the requirements of a competitive, masculine gamer. Moreover, the video gaming industry has been catering to men and boys for a long time. Purposefully showinggaming as a male activity also has limited women from participating in gaming events.

In theory, everybody deserves an equal opportunity regardless of their gender. There may be nothing that is preventing women from being E-sports players if they are skilled enough. However, it would be remiss to not acknowledge the circumstances of a marginalized section of people, which negatively affect their opportunities. For every female gamer, not only does she have to grind hard to get noticed by others, but she also has to go through hostile remarks by other community members- from being harassed on voice and chat-box to witnessing players throwing the game away entirely just because he is competing against a female gamer.

While it is right to hold the hostile community members responsible for lodging a war against female gamers, the blame must also be shared by the complicit gaming industry, which has not done enough to address harassment surrounding their game products and has not paid any attention to curb the misogyny that exists within the industry. The depiction of female characters in an overly sexual way re-asserts the stereotypical notion of gender roles prevalent in society and shows how a woman is objectified routinely. Women are also used as rewards. Miranda Lawson, a character from Mass Effect, is shown as a hyper-intelligent and an awe-inspiring woman but is known for her skin-tight outfits. Players can choose to start a relationship with her and will be rewarded with the chance to see her body naked. Similarly, in the game Metroid, if players finish the game in under one hour, they get a chance to see Samus Aran in a bikini.

According to the objectification theory, exposure to hypersexualized female characters activates women's thoughts on appearances, making them feel critical about their bodies. In video games, owing to their interactive nature, the reception levels are even more elevated as users take over the characters. They embody the virtual avatar and infer their behaviour and attitudes from their chosen avatar. This is known as the proteus effect and results in even more objectification. Female representation in video games is not only deficient, but they also often appear to have unrealistic body proportions than male characters. Due to the under- and misrepresentation of females, many women are unwelcomed in the gaming industry.

Video games have been marketed in a way that makes others believe it as an esoteric industry where casual and female gamers are excluded. The word 'gamer' is meant to suggest a wholly gendered community. And to maintain the sanctity of this highly masculine community, the GamerGate movement was a response. On a men's rights activist platform called the Men Going Their Way, one discussion was posted on women's empowerment in video games:

I am starting this thread because I see a new trend in the video/computer game world, and that is the increase in strong playable female characters . . . I call bullshit on this subject. Video games are the last place for guys to hang out and now women are taking over. Why not just save us the trouble and instead of eliminating our fantasy world just throw us in work camp to provide for their bastard children (literally speaking) while they shit all over us . . . wait they already do that.

The negative attitude of male gamers against female gamers has an element of uniformity, also called synchronous sexism, which triggers hostile in-game behaviours. There have been attempts to gather support for female gamers to participate as athletes by creating exclusive female teams. For instance, the creation of Team Siren as the first-ever all-female team to compete in League of Legends landed much criticism. The negative publicity was so intense that the team disbanded.

The case for sexism doesn't stop there. Vulgar language and rape threats on chat boxes are found in ordinary discourses. A prominent streamer and a competitive E-sports player named Rummy Hafu disclosed a disturbing instance she encountered while competing in World of Warcraft. At the tournament, she encountered a team named 'Gonna Rape Hafu at Regionals.' Despite such a questionable name, no action was taken, and the team qualified for regionals at BlizzCon.

It appears that a culture of anonymity is also propelled by E-sports, which shields online harassers from suffering any consequences for their hateful speech and has made achieving social justice on such platforms challenging. Women’s presence in the gaming industry is considered ancillary. Their representation is meagre when compared to male representation, and they are left with few character options that are far from being realistic and, more often, overly sexualised. Their characteristics are shown to be directly linked with objects of desire.

The Author:Sunidhi Kashyap is an undergraduate law student at NLU Patiala, India.