“Yo, is that a gamer girl? I have a boner”; Gendered aggression in competitive video games

As a long time member of the video game community, personal experience reveals that women within the competitive gaming scene are regularly faced with sexual harassment and aggression from their male counterparts. The purpose of this study is to explore why this environment results in these forms of hostility towards women. This study utilizes mixed methodology. I pull examples from my own experience, and perform a content analysis of documented incidents of aggression against other women in the community. Findings reveal that factors such as the hypermasculinity of gaming culture, and men’s ideological dominance over women are both contributors to creating this sexist environment. Although there are a number of coping strategies in dealing with harassment, the solutions to these problems lies in engaging more men in the prevention of violence against women. What began as a video game communication discourse study, has evolved into an exploration of how male ideologies inform behavior and feelings towards women, and examining how these issues manifest in the digital realm. Keywords: misogyny, trolling, gamer culture, violence, autoethnograph