How to Prevent Sexual Harassment and Toxic Environments for Womxn in Video Games

         Online video games can be toxic environment for individuals who are not identified as cis-males due to sexual harassment, sex-stereotypes and hate speech. Online video games are not just a place for individuals to play in but a social environment where gamers can interact with other players. To add, sexual harassment is such a dominant social problem within video games that it is logical to find a social and educational solution to help everyone, specifically white cis-males to understand why the current social environment is unhealthy. Currently the way consoles or games have specific reactive protocols in order to solve the problem of sexual harassment including removing the players, and messages that promote sexual harassment. Even if the reactive solution can be a temporal relief to the womxn that deal sexual harassment by eliminating the specific person that is the abuser or the abusive comments. But it doesn’t solve the problem in a permanent way where it dismantles the toxic environment in a permanent way. There needs to be a way to get the lesson across without making it into an isolating module that feels like a lecture that gamers dread to listen and it can not be an simple as an agree to the terms and conditions that they would be able to not even take a look at the 28 pages within it. The way that many educational modules precede is extensive and unbearable videos with simplistic questions and answers. There is no type of retention when it comes to these solutions due to the lack of engagement; retention is needed in order for gamers to actually implement what they learned to the future social interactions in video games. To find a resolution to the problem, how can there be a way to make a module that can actually be social, proactive and help gamers retain the information that they learned?

         Addressing the problem of sexual harassment and the toxic environment can be undermined by the belief that there is no actual problem in the social environment in video games. The main claim that counteracts the need to address sexual harassment is that womxn have the same presence men have in the virtual world so then they are, in the end supportive to this environment as well. Backing up this claim is a research, that identifies the percentage of womxn gamers to men gamers is basically equal now (Paaßen, par.1). Even if the number of people playing is equal from men to womxn players, it doesn’t mean that it is not an unwelcoming social environment for womxn. As emphasized before, video games are a social environment, many players play with multiple players. With these multiple players you can have conversations with microphones or send each other messages through group chats with the games. Many of these chats are anonymous; players can only see others usernames, age and sometimes gender. Womxn don’t only witness sexual harassment and misogyny from the video games but they actually experience sexual harassment while playing games with other players. According to research about 60% of players have actually seen some sort of sexual harassment being said to someone else (Duggan, par.2). This statistic gives the notion of how visible sexual harassment is in video games. As seen in Figure 1, this is one of the numerous examples seen in a website called “You Play Video Games? So are you… Fat, Ugly or Slutty” this is a website where womxn put up different situations when they gaming where a man was either misogynistic or sexually harassing them. Figure 1 is specific a situation where…

Figure 1- A blog post from "You play video games? So are you... Fat, Ugly or Slutty," a Screen Shot of a Message that Contains Sexual Harassment

… a male gamer was sexually harassing a girl player at random. The gamer explains that she was playing Borderlands 2 with her boyfriend and friends when all of a sudden she received this message (Agriculture). This message is one among many attacks womxn receive while playing video games. Most of the time these attack have no interior motive other than trying to belittle or make womxn uncomfortable within the game environment. Men in video games believe it is okay to send womxn these messages on the game message boards. According to research, people who are exposed to video games become more tolerant and accepting to sexual harassment and rape culture (Dill, par.1). Which leads to having to very strong notion that shows how womxn are vulnerable to men who are attacking them, and they have never met or will ever meet these men in the real world.

         Having places where people can report sexual harassment and hate speech within the games is helpful but doesn’t solve the problem. This reactive solution can give relief to the victims by removing the abuser from the environment but doesn’t address the fact that they can’t encounter another abuser within the game. Microsoft already implemented a reporting harassment behavior in their Xbox one console, which is a long improvement than allowing the abusers make the virtual world their own (Shafford, 2016). Online video games can be a toxic social environment for womxn where there needs to be a way to keep the womxn community safe by giving them a resource where they can report hate speech and sexual harassment but there should allows be a more proactive approach to the problem where womxn shouldn’t have to deal with this abuse in the first place.

         This toxic community within stimulates anxiety, sadness, self-doubt and stress for many womxn within this virtual community. An article in the Cut, reports that indeed cyberharassment leads to withdrawal, depressive symptoms and damages mental womxn’s mental health (Singal, par.4). This environment should not be tolerated; this is why there was a creation of reporting options within games started being created. Many video game consoles and video games have adapted a reporting system for women to feel safe within the social environment aspect of video games. Games including Minecraft, Fortnite and more have adapted support centers or options to report an abuse player (Cybersmile, par. 1-3). But, it does nothing to solve the problem other than avoid root problem by not allowing abusive men to play the video games. Just because a game or console blocks an individual for a certain amount of time from the game will not allow the player to understand what they did wrong. Also this makes it the victims’ work to go through the process of blocking an individual and having to explain why they are blocking a certain individual. The way that reporting systems works is also a large procedure and sometimes it can be difficult to find the link to report an abuser which creates an inconvenience for the victim (Cybersmile, par.1). Sometimes it just deletes the negative comments written by the individual but doesn’t remove the individual making the comments. On another note, educating men about how womxn are treated inhumanely throughout history sounds impossible. How can there be a module that has enough of the history, but can have an actual impact in men to make the change and act on it sounds difficult. Mostly when men might describe it as hostile and destroys their environment where they can act like themselves. Men in video games are known to be racist, sexist and homophobic and create a hostile environment (Maher, par. 4). Therefore, men feeling targeted over being reported about harassing womxn are part of the problem; they should understand that they are targeted because of their actions. Creating a training where men can role play in order to learn and practice there social changes without getting anyone’s feeling hurt can be the most effective way to actually get close to the solution of the problem that the social virtual world is facing. (Perry, par.1)

         Currently, the video game setting doesn’t seem to have focused video games that create lessons for abusers who are reported. But, there is a development of educating students about sexual harassment in school environments. Three northern Chicago charters schools in October 2016 launched a video game called Bystanders in their classrooms that teaches students about sexual misconduct (Stone, par. 1-3). The video game is aiming to educate students on how not to be bystanders and understand what sexual harassment is and the next steps to take when you are sexually harassed. Bystander really just aimed to shift the social norms about sexual harassment and to disrupt and prevent sexual harassment (Stone, par. 6). Looking at Figure 2, a screenshot of the actual game, you can see how the minimalistic setting can go a long way to create sympathy and an understanding of what the problem is right away through facial expressions and context.

Figure 2- A screen shot of the game Bystanders taken from the article "Can VR teaches us how to deal with Sexual Harassment?"

Also in Figure 2, The text behind the womxn’s back describes what the situation is which in this case is explaining that the man the individual had been flirting got the wrong message of her intentions due to what she was wearing, a dress. In this image you can also see the individual that the gamer is playing which in this case is the girl on the right who is playing a friend or a bystander deciding on what to say to the victim. The game actually allows the player to choose what to say to the victim and allows the gamer to lead the storyline by giving options that can lead the story differently. The game does not penalize the player by choosing the wrong choice instead brings you back to earlier lessons in the game (Holpuch, par.18). This is an efficient way to teach someone to understand the cycle of what they are doing incorrectly because the way they role play they can see the cycle within the game storyline of what they did wrong that keeps them from moving on to the solution. This allows the players to emotionally immerse themselves, as well as retain the information since it is a cycle process that requires their full attention in order to move on. According to research, 97.6% of the students who played the game in a pilot found this game to have valuable information and 60% of them found the game to be relevant (Rowley, 103-106). Given this high number of value that student gave this game demonstrates the need of educating people on sexual harassment and how this can change the culture of the virtual world with a education like Bystanders.

         In addition to just regular video games, virtual reality has gained popularity on being used to train people on sexual harassment and many other social problems in workspaces. Research shows that people tend to take in more information when it comes virtual reality training compared to power points and videos (Maddox, par.5). This reclaims the key element to an adjustment in making sexual harassment trainings, retention. Virtual reality games take retention to another level, it doesn’t just allow the players to immerse themselves socially and emotionally through a storyline but also visual allows them to adapt a point of view, visually. Presently, there is a virtual reality game called Vantage Point, which is a program that was made to train people on sexual harassment (Holpuch, par.4). Furthermore, the game’s intentions are “to increase accuracy, empathy, and retention through full immersion” (Vantage Point, par.4). This game brings the players to the position of four different scenarios that the player can visually interact with the environment, such as answering text messages and allowing the player to see what they want in the direction of their head is moving. In Figure 3, the video demonstrates visually and audibly full immersion that virtual reality provides.  

Figure 3- Video "Vantage Point" that demonstrates How the Game Works

For an example, in the video it demonstrates how the boss is grabs the womxn’s, seen on the screenshot above, and asks her dress “fitting” for the occasion or in other words to dress in a sexually appealing way for it (Vantage Point, 00:00). Right after the situation you can see in the video the player gets a text message to emphasize that the situation that had happened was wrong, in the text message is a friend who is asking player if they should interfere. Then, the player decides on a variety of choices if they agree or disagree on interfering. If the player chooses not challenge the problem the game then gives you a phone call with Mercer, an ally figure, and she then explains to the player what they did wrong, which develops social-interactivity for the player within the game (Holpuch, par.2). This development also introduces accountability and how players should be held to make the right call and if they don’t their friends will also be in charge of keeping them accountable. This doesn’t just develop a sense that the people around you are watching what you are saying but it also pushes the player to also pay attention to what the people around you are saying and gives them the confidence to intervene; it breaks cycle for the bystanders.

         In other words, Vantage Point just like Bystander allows the player to choose the way the story plot develops and allows them to immerse themselves mentally since they have to be thinking about how to answer. Another important aspect is that Vantage point, unlike Bystander, visually it allows the player to develop a point of view, the way that they control what they are looking at and how immerse themselves allows them to be present. This not just an immersive activity but also develops strong retention and knowledge of the problem to be able to advocate for change even if its within the realm of their friend group. This creates the notion that the 60% of people who have seen some type of sexual harassment can now intervene with confidence and lifts the percentage of 47% players who currently confront the abuser (Duggan, par.4). To put it in perspective, there have been many positive developments that people made to fight sexual harassment within the physical world, which leaves a possibility to develop it within the virtual world.

         In summary, creating an addition to the current games like Bystander or Vantage Point on virtual sexual harassment and allowing it to be an adaption to schools can really prevent the normalization of sexual harassment within video games. This allows the abusers to be put in the victims shoes or allows them to at least explore what they are doing wrong and how to break that apart and understand why their actions can be harmful. This creates a sense of understanding to men on why they shouldn’t sexually harass womxn in video games. As well as allowing players to have the knowledge to keep themselves and other players accountable is valuable to the gaming world. The proactive approach can allow the reactive solutions to be for emergencies when even people going through the training still are being abusive to any player should be removed from that environment. Additionally, the proactive solution makes the rate lower for a womxn to have that negative interact with another player. This solution definitely is a step in the right direction but there is definitely a lot more work that needs to be done for every community within video games in order to be a safe space for everyone.