Majority Of Women Hide Gender While Gaming To Avoid Harassment, Survey Shows

According to a new study, more than half of women attempt to hide their gender when playing games. Tech company Lenovo has found in their research that 59% of participants admitted they avoided revealing their gender to other players to avoid trouble. The same research has revealed that 77% of those asked admitted they had received harassment.

According to GamesIndustry.Biz, the majority of female gamers report that their gender has caused them issues in gaming spaces. The harassment that the 77% of participants reported can be broken down into different types of unwanted advice or behaviour: 70% reported that they had their gaming competency questioned, 65% experienced gatekeeping, and 50% said they were patronised. Another 44% of participants recorded that they had received "unsolicited relationship asks".

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Though the gaming sphere can be quite hostile towards women, it's reported that most of these 900 women felt well depicted by developers. Eighty percent of participants said that they were happy with triple-A representation, and 91% were happy with indie game depiction, too.

To resolve the issues that women continue to experience, participants were asked what they would want developers and game companies to improve on, to encourage better behaviour. Seventy-one percent of participants answered that gaming adverts need to incorporate more diversity. These participants also wanted to see more diversity in esports teams - 61% of them expressed that they'd like to see companies form all-women teams to compete at a high level.

Women still seem to disproportionately get affected by their gender in games. The common "make me a sandwich" comments haven't gone anywhere, despite the joke getting tired and old a decade ago. Hopefully, game companies use this research to inform further diversity decisions - and frankly, I hope harassers online finally grow up.

Topics: News