By emphasizing the lived experiences of women who identify as both female and gamer, this project first builds on Shaw’s (2014a) call to diversify games research focused on
marginalized audiences. In speaking to non-traditional gamers, Shaw found that their attitudes towards representation in games differed heavily from how developers and researchers discussed representation. These groups frequently focused on proving that game audiences are more
diverse than expected, calling for better representation in games in order to respond to these players (p. 15). They expect that better representations are “the end goal for audiences and producers who are members of these specific marginalized groups” (p. 15). What Shaw found, however, is that this view is particularly market-focused, and that players are used to and capable of identifying with characters that do not share their out-of-game identities. Even more
importantly, she argues that “the issue of representation in games and indeed, in all media
industries is too often focused on what a ‘good’ representation of a given group would looks like. Such concerns are inevitably limiting. Races, genders, and sexualities are not fixable, knowable, static entities that can be described” (p. 230). Because of this, both a different perspective on representation and on identification is necessary to the updated study of games; Shaw
recommended not only diversifying representations for the sake of diversity rather than in pursuit of a “good” representation, but also further analysis of how games are talked about, constructed, and themselves marginalized (p. 227).
Similarly, this project pushes beyond the idea that representation is or should be deeply significant to participants.15 Although it asks about representation and categorizes female
15 When starting this project, I did expect representation to matter deeply to participants and spent my first few interviews surprised at how dismissive they were of most representational trends and limitations in games. Interviewees consistently recognized in-game representations of women as “bad” or “limited”, but then generally moved the discussion to why this mattered from the perspective of audience construction or their interactions with
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gamers’ reactions to female characters in games, it recognizes that these concerns or reactions are part of a broader discourse working to maintain game culture and communities as primarily homosocial spaces for men. This project prioritizes women’s lived experiences as gamers and draws conclusions directly from their statements. Because of this, it broadens the existing
research on women’s conflicted positions, providing an analysis of cultural components and their relationship to identity, gender, and feminism in technological spaces rather than focusing
primarily on content or majority audiences. It also offers a new perspective on feminist
interventions into masculinized spaces; as Kennedy (2005) argued about female Quake players, women who game undermine stable gender norms and dominant discourses around who can be a gamer or who can engage with technology more generally.
This central focus on women’s experiences in gaming culture is particularly significant in the post-casual era, another contribution this dissertation makes to the existing literature. As evidenced in the above sections, the idea that gaming is a masculine pursuit has largely gone unquestioned; even work that has aimed to diversify gaming audiences has started from the perspective that to do so would be a change to gaming’s perceived insularity. However, recent industrial changes such as the rise of casual games have undermined this assumption; industry members who previously prioritized male audiences have begun to recognize the benefits of targeting their games more broadly, and in doing so, have introduced an era where women who game are becoming less unusual. At the same time, gaming discourses still construct women as marginal, as casual rather than core gamers, and as new to gaming audiences. The impact of these discourses on women’s experiences and subject positions merits further exploration, especially as such a perspective ignores their long-standing contribution to game communities
other gamers. Representation mattered as an aspect of an overall culture excluding women, rather than as a major force on its own.
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and culture. The newness of these discourses also means that even relatively recent work on games may be in need of update, as casual games have fundamentally changed the conditions for being a gamer and as elements of the gaming community have displayed more obvious sexism and misogyny.
Finally, this work addresses the overall lack of research that focuses on women’s specific strategies for managing their treatment within gaming communities. Although there is extensive evidence that gaming communities are toxic and that they contain specific linguistic norms and behavioral patterns that target female-identified players for harassment, little to no work explores how women cope with this when they opt to play games and enter game spaces. Understanding these strategies is critical to understanding both the power of marginalized groups and the limitations on their power; how and when they can manage harassment and marginalization in games can then also provide insight into managing exclusionary forces in other areas of society as well. Therefore, this dissertation draws on workplace harassment research, as it is the most heavily studied type of harassment, to analyze the coping strategies participants described and their potential effectiveness. This should deepen understanding of how inequality perpetuates not only through gaming but also other masculinized social spheres.