Fading Gender Lines

From what I have seen in the lecture notes on gaming the research points to gender differences between the male and female sex in the virtual world of gaming. Yet this seems to be to an extent only at this point in time.

The study by Hartmann and Klimmt of 18-26 year old females looked at four elements that put females off certain games:

1. negitive representation of females in games (stereotyping and/or sexual objectification)
2. violence in games
3. lack of social interaction in 'action' games
4. competitive nature of many games

The least import factor was negitive representation in games and the most important factor was lack of social interaction. Females seem to what to be known as sexy indiviuals in their virtual life and this seems to be the same for male individuals as well to be protrayed as strong and heroic even if this is not how these particular men and woman aren't percived in real life.

What surprised me was that a lack of social interaction in games was the main deterent for females. I thought that it would have been the competitive nature of the games as that is typically a male thing. So I thought that they would have been put off from acting in these male ways. Yet the study by Royse and others found that female power users wanted to look sexy while kicking butt. The more emersion females have in this 'male dominated world' of gaming the more they grow fond of it.

Females seem to want to be sexy in this virtual world on both points here. They want to look sexy through their avatar and feel and look sexy while having a lot of power and skill in the game. A competitive nature seems to be embraced in these games. This was found in Bertozzi's study where males were more likely than females to assist a weaker player in the game. in the reading for this week too by Betozzi "You play like a girl!' the competitive nature of girls is brought up through the game of counter-strike. Woman clans who stick together in their groups percive other girls who are the weaker players as sluts as they try to get help that they know they can get through other male players and try to get ahead which is what these females clans are trying not to be. These females clans in counter-strike have percived themselves to have worked hard to get the status to play among the boys in a competitive nature without the discrimination of falling out of the typical schema of a woman. This schema says that woman should be 'warm, beautiful, caring and to be put on a pedastel'. These woman in these clans seem to get quite aggressive about it, some even say more so than men.

No matter how females tackle these games of having either a passive or active stratergy they want to compete with the males in the game. Females may want more social interaction in these games but this competitive nature of the games is how social interaction is done through these games, so it seems to be embraced by some woman who participate in these games, sometimes done in their own unique ways. This behaviour of competition in females shows that the gender lines are beginning to fade through this behaviour of wanting to look good in the virtual world of gaming and being percived to be good. Is this drawing any connections to how females and males are interacting in the real world (work, university etc...) in this day and age?