So the #GamerGaters are mad about a new study that suggests that some of the most dickishly misogynistic male gamers are quite literally losers. That is, men playing video games like Halo and Call of Duty online tend to lash out at women players when they’re doing their worst.
Looking at the behavior of a number of men and women over the course of 163 games of Halo 3, researchers Michael Kasumovic and Jeffrey Kuznekoff from the University of New South Wales and Miami University found that
lower-skilled players were more hostile towards a female-voiced teammate, especially when performing poorly. In contrast, lower-skilled players behaved submissively towards a male-voiced player in the identical scenario. This difference in gender-directed behaviour became more extreme with poorer focal-player performance.
In other words, the more of a video game loser they were, the more of a misogynistic loser they became.
We suggest that low-status males increase female-directed hostility to minimize the loss of status as a consequence of hierarchical reconfiguration resulting from the entrance of a woman into the competitive arena.
In other words, they hate losing … to a girl.
The researchers argue that the entrance of larger numbers of women into the dude-heavy world of video games is especially threatening to “[l]ow-status and low-performing males,” who
have the most to lose as a consequence of the hierarchical reconfiguration due to the entry of a competitive woman. As men often rely on aggression to maintain their dominant social status, the increase in hostility towards a woman by lower-status males may be an attempt to disregard a female’s performance and suppress her disturbance on the hierarchy to retain their social rank.
If this all sounds to you like a plausible explanation for a lot of the anger driving #GamerGaters, you’re not the only one to see the connection.
A recent article on the study on Yahoo News suggests that,
[a]s gaming has traditionally been a male-dominated pastime, these findings could go some way to explain 2014′s Gamergate furore. Several high profile female game developers were targeted with a torrent of misogynistic abuse, including rape and death threats, coordinated by factions of male gamers using sites like 4Chan and Reddit.
And this is what has the #GamerGaters on Reddit’s KotakuInAction subreddit pig-biting mad. In a thread complaining about the Yahoo News piece, the regulars show just what losers they really are by lashing out at … women.
Evidently forgetting that the study in question was conducted by two men, a Redditor called Katastic_Voyage won more than 130 upvotes with a lovely rant declaring that
There’s a huge freaking difference between shit talking, and bullying.
But most of these articles and “papers” are written by women, who live in a woman’s world, and don’t understand the first thing about what it’s really like to be a man. The others are by men who are basically women but doesn’t realize it–they were likely forced to grow up in a woman dominated, catty, passive-aggressive world.
Ok, my bad. The researchers might appear to be men, but are probably “men who are basically women but doesn’t realize it.”
And somehow this all has something to do with metal music:
Woman call all men “dumb” because that’s what they call anything they don’t understand. It’d be like someone who likes classical music calling metal dumb. Even if they’re actually related. Even though there’s plenty of beauty and complexity in metal… they don’t ever dive into it so they deride and dismiss it.
It IS real music, mom! (Sound of bedroom door slamming, followed by the muffled intro to “Enter Sandman.”)
So they take things like:
The need to compete? They think it’s violence.
The need to shit talk? They think it’s bullying.
The fact that men can look at other women and not cheat? It blows their minds that men can actually feel pleasure just seeing a woman of beauty… and that’s it.
Uh, I thought we were talking about video games. Did some mean lady just break up with you?
A fellow called Zakamaru, replying to Katastic_Voyage, decided to show how not mad he was about women invading “male spaces” by getting mad about women invading “male spaces.”
It’s what happens when a bunch of women get into male spaces and some fail to understand it.
Gaming has always been competitive. I can’t even begin to count the amount of times I was called various names and derogatory remarks, but it doesn’t fucking matter. You get insulted all the time, and it takes a special type of person to actually take offense to that. …
It’s not that we hate women. With gaming being a predominantly male hobby, it’s going to have elements of masculinity, competitiveness, and testosterone floating about. When people shit talk, they will use any sort of “weakness” that you have and attack it. If you’re unskilled, you’re a noob/scrub. If you’re an obvious underaged child, you get called a kid. If someone needs a quick all-purpose insult, you’re now a faggot.
When some women see this, they immediately think that it needs to change to fit their worldview. To them, these insults are simply unacceptable, and are “x-phobic” or whatever tumblr buzzword they feel like using today. Never mind the fact that gaming was born from a bunch of socially awkward men who carved out their own space with their own culture and lingo. No, now you have to cater to ME, because I’m a GIRL.
Boy, you guys really put those dumb lady researchers (who aren’t ladies, but who maybe sort of really are) in their place.
—
Please read the newly revised COMMENTS POLICY before commenting.
*when not *how
A friend of mine is going for her black belt in aikido next month, and had to write an essay as part of the process. One of the things she mentioned in it was the 2014 Wimbledon match between Djokovic and Federer:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/10949398/Roger-Federer-vs-Novak-Djokovic-Wimbledon-2014-final-live.html
She wrote that the players ‘gave each other the opportunity to show their best tennis’, and that both players were grateful to each other for the chance to have such a powerful experience. I’m not a competitive person at all (and aikido is apparently very consciously noncompetitive), but this story made me rethink the value of competition.
From years of experience in working in and around classic competitive gaming where the presence of women competitors is less than 1% in 2015, I’d have to confirm that the findings in this study are true. I have never seen a consistent world record performer ever troll, harass or stalk any of the few yet equally skilled women competitors. Never. But I have seen with alarming regularity lesser skilled male competitors lash out viciously and for extended periods of time (read:years) at women who out perform them, forming groups comprised of other lesser caliber competitors to cyber mob her and others who exhibit high-performance skill. Interestingly enough, they never target a male competitor in this manner.
To the Gaters who think women in competitive gaming is something new, best brush up on video game history. The first paid competitor in video game history was a woman and the first national video game tournament championship ever held in the USA in 1980 was won by a 16-year old girl who grew up to become one of the legendary early programmers of The 80s. Women made up the very same demographic they do today in video game culture beginning as early as 1978 but advertising after 1983, due to The Crash forcing companies to focus energies on their larger demographic to stay alive, doesn’t show it. If you want proof of the early history of women in gaming, take a look at Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard (began in 1981) and you will see world records set from the very beginning that are held by women and some that still stand unbeaten 34-years later. They were that good. Some set world records that will never be beaten.
Anyone who makes the “games are inherently competitive” argument must not be familiar with the current renaissance of cooperative board games. I’d say they’re the fastest-growing board game subgenre right now. It’s not because people don’t want a challenge (they’re extremely difficult) but because it turns out a lot of people enjoy the skill and strategy of games but don’t want to be in zero-sum competition with their friends.
Hello toxic masculinity anyone?
<blockquote
I love how they completely ignore that the study points out that the men who were losing to other men didn’t shit talk them but became SUBMISSIVE to the guys who were doing better than them. When it was a woman doing better, they became hostile.
…
So the whole “this is just how we bros talk” is tossed right out the window, cause, No, you don’t apparently talk to a ‘superior’ male the way you talk to a ‘superior’ female. You need to make her inferior, so you do. Or you try.
My thoughts exactly. I wonder if future studies will also show a positive correlation between poor reading comprehension and misogyny.
‘Willful ignorance’ goes without saying.
As an aside, multi-player games scare the shit out of me – I’m way too shy – so I’ve always gone single-player. The idea of being lambasted by these manly manbros if I don’t perform well (ugh) probably factors in there somewhere.
Is it sad that I read the headline and my first thought was, “In other news, water is wet!”?
@Sunny, yep! Totes. Definitely.
Argh, damn you blockquote mammoth! I give up to you this offering, so that you may bless my keyboard with correct coding.
Let’s try that again:
My thoughts exactly. I wonder if future studies will also show a positive correlation between poor reading comprehension and misogyny.
‘Willful ignorance’ goes without saying.
As an aside, multi-player games scare the shit out of me – I’m way too shy – so I’ve always gone single-player. The idea of being lambasted by these manly manbros if I don’t perform well (ugh) probably factors in there somewhere
“There’s a huge freaking difference between shit talking, and bullying.”
There sure is, and since women are great shit talkers, women know the difference when they see it.
OK I’ve been gaming all my life and I’m always very confused by the now women are also playing group. I don’t ever remember a time when women didn’t. I got into games through my mom’s old snes.
Also I hate the toxic environment that a lot of games have gotten, it’s why I always turn off voice chat or only use private chat. I got lucky with wow, which is one of my favorite games but has a pretty hostile community by finding a very accepting and caring guild leader who does everything he can to make sure it’s a safe space for everyone.
So no, trying to take hostility and anger out of games isn’t a gender issue. And it isn’t new. The people defending it are the people who cause it, and I’m very tired of them and their behavior. And so is everyone else I’ve ever met who doesn’t act like that.
@EJ Are we talking about the same game? ‘Cause there’ve been so many LoTR card games it’s hard to tell.
If you’re referring to the Fantasy Flight one, they’ve been doing a lot of work in recent cycles to try and breathe new life into old cards and have done a pretty good job at rehabilitating some of the old coasters. It’s worth a second look if you haven’t sold off yet.
@katz, I would love to play Pandemic, speaking of co-op board games. I had the chance to play Last Night on Earth, but my friend with the MGS Risk game hadn’t ever played that, so that’s what we went with.
Maybe I ought to get something like that next gifting season. I’ve had my eye on Fortune And Glory, but I’m starting to have qualms about how the Glory bit is “steal brown peoples’ culture for the enjoyment of white people.”
O RLY? Actually, it’s called BEING HUMAN. Try it sometime, if you ever manage to evolve beyond the oblivious jackass stage.
These “you must be a wimp to take offence at this” types piss me right the hell off. Like THEY don’t get mad when a girl beats them. They get offended all the time at every perceived slight to their manly-manly manhood, and evey perceived invasion of their manly-manly manspaces. But should we complain at their efforts to drive us out, we get called “too sensitive, what are you — on the rag or sumpin’?”
And heaven forfend a feeeeemale should shit-talk THEM, in turn. Then you’ll get to witness an actual cerebral hemorrhage in progress!
Bull-fucking-SHIT. Women have been playing computer games for as long as they’ve existed. The reason you don’t see us in your “predominantly male hobby” is because YOU ARE NOT PAYING ANY FUCKING ATTENTION.
And who says you need testosterone to compete or be competitive, anyway? Actually, it only seems to flare up when one of you guys loses to one of us “girls”. When a better man beats you, do you shit-talk him? NO. You clam up and fuck off. So why do you do that to women, then? Oh yeah…we offend you with our boobs that you can’t grab, and our periods and pregnancy scares and all that other ladystuff you can’t even remotely pretend you understand, no matter how much you bullshit about it.
Dude, the reason we call guys like you stupid is because you totally fucking ARE. You’re so ignorant that it makes me vicariously embarrassed for you. Maybe you’re lucky it’s not physically painful to be so stupid, but DAMN, sometimes I think it ought to be. You’d be forever doubled over on the floor, and the only danger you’d pose there is being a trip hazard for anyone passing through.
Is this supposed to make us feel better about being abused? Fuck off. Excuse (and abuse) NOT accepted.
Actually, the weakness is all yours, because you have to pick on anything you perceive as “not belonging” to make your wee self feel bigger. You noob, you scrub, you kid, you homophobic transphobic fucking SLUR, you. You lost to a girl, and now you’re bawling that you don’t get to abuse her for beating you fair and square? You colossal fucking WIMP. Fuck off with your wimpy bullshit excuses.
Oh, fuck OFF already. Nobody wants your fucking “catering”. We are talking here about being extended the same small basic respect that you’d give a guy who BEAT you at a fucking GAME, fergawdsakes. And you overgrown pissbabies think you’re being oppressed by being told to grow the fuck up and stop taking your petty status disputes so goddamn seriously? Fuck off with that “catering” and “tumblr buzzword” shit.
Insults ARE simply unacceptable. If you were playing chess in a public forum, nobody within earshot would want to play you for flipping the board over and calling the other player a bitch. You do NOT get to call people sexist and homophobic slurs, and if you don’t understand that, then you have a lot of goddamn growing up to do. If you did that in the real world, you’d be missing a lot of teeth in no time, as my best friend’s son found out when he tried to take his gamer style of argumentation into non-cyber space. He ended up getting punched out for that, and wound up in the emergency room. And all because he just had to shoot off his macho mouth! Well, now his mouth is gonna be good and sore for a long, long time. And with any luck, he’ll think twice about shit-talking in future.
Insults hurt real people in real ways. There is a real person on the receiving end of everything you say, and if you cannot say these things to someone’s face for fear of what they might do, or how shitty you’d look if someone overheard and said not to talk to a woman that way, then keep it the fuck off the internet. How fucking hard IS that?
Christ, I get so sick of these pampered little boys and their whiny, wet-diaper arguments.
Pandemic is fabulous, and it’s everywhere now. Forbidden Island is my favorite, better than Forbidden Desert, although that’s a matter of opinion. There’s also a Call of Cthulhu game and one about firefighters.
@Falconer
Oh yeah. I was considering changing my nym (to Sunny, believe it or not, I guess that’s off the table now 😛 ). Maybe I should give it extra thought now there’s three of us? sunnysombrera is the username I would use for websites when I was a teenager, I’m happy to give it an upgrade here.
Oh, don’t change it just because of me. I think I can keep you, Sunny, and Sunny Burn straight without having to resort to proper-Sunny, other-Sunny thinking.
@katz, thanks for the endorsement on Pandemic! That shot it straight to the top of my list.
“Why can’t women respect that we made one of the most popular hobbies into a safe space to be horrible racist misogynistic abusers?!”
Part of the reason I don’t play online except with people I know or who are introduced to me by people I know is the number of instances of being subjected to incredibly rude comments. I can only imagine how much nastier these douches must get with someone who is a woman or speaks with a foreign accent. My understanding coming from talking with a friend of mine is that it also depends largely on which game you play: some gaming communities are notoriously unpleasant and others are quite civil. I wonder if whether the multiplayer nature (that is, cooperative vs. competitive) of the game changes the dynamics.
@sunnysombrera
I like the “sombrera” part of your nick, although right now I’m wondering where it comes from.
I literally cackled out loud when I read about that article. My mind immediately imagined all those angry gg’ers just frothing at the mouth. It was pretty much a given that they whatever they would say to disprove the study and rail against it, would actually pretty much confirm it. Lovely, just…lovely.
Anyway, I do have to say that we probably need more studies like these before we can draw solid conclusions. Yes, it’s obvious that this explanation just makes sense on every level, and further study is unlikely to disprove it, but I also think the issue is probably even more complex and I’d just like to see more studies like it. Hell, the more studies there are, the more difficult it will become for them to deny the obvious. Although the cynic in me says that even if a 100 similar studies are done, they’ll just go the way of anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers and accuse all scientists of a huge conspiracy. They already seem top be doing that anyway (e.g. the feminazi world domination conspiracy).
“We suggest that low-status males increase female-directed hostility to minimize the loss of status as a consequence of hierarchical reconfiguration resulting from the entrance of a woman into the competitive arena.”
—-I find this to be the best definition of the “men’s rights movement”, it’s about how inadequate and threatened the men feel. It’s ultimately about THEM, not the women they attack.
@David N-T The nature of the game definitely changes the nature of the community, sports games for example will often have remarkably assholtastic behavior until you wander into a golf game. Online golf games tend to be very polite and supportive. I think a lot of it has to do with the age of the players as well, WoW’s community could be pretty atrocious, on the other hand I know a lot of people who would let young children play City of Heroes with them because the community was pretty calm and supportive of newcomers.
My brother used to play WoW, and he would always play as the Horde because his every experience with the Alliance was awful. If it wasn’t verbal abuse, the streets would be full of people pretending to have sex.
Yeah, mind blown alright.
…wait. I delight on women’s beauty too!
Almost like you have to be a misogynistic asshole to think women’s minds are blown by men not seeking sex at all times with all women.