Figure 4: A screen shot that shows misogynistic comments from the article “Where To Report Sexist Gamer Dudes”
This very common misogynistic attack can also put womxn in a defenseless position of not feeling good enough to be a gamer even if she has received better ranks than the male players who are constantly attacking them. There is never a sense of equity with womxn and men when it comes to video games because men don’t seem to see womxn as actual gamers.
This toxic community can stimulate 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. But, it honestly does nothing to solve the problem other than avoid root problem by not allowing men to play the video games. Just because you block an individual for a certain amount of time from the game will not allow the player to understand what they did wrong. The way that reporting systems works is also a large procedure and if only one person reports the individual it doesn’t prevent them from continuing the game. Rather it just deletes the negative comments written by the individual. Without any type of education of why being this horrible to women creates the situation of why men keep harassing women in video games without a second thought when they are allowed back to the space.
Educating men about 1000 years of why womxn are treating inhumanely sounds impossible. How can there be a module that has enough of the history, can impact men to make the change and get men to actually act on it sounds difficult. Mostly when men might describe it as hostile and destroys their environment where they can act like themselves. Men feeling targeted over being reported about harassing womxn are part of the problem. There needs to be a way to make a module that won’t feel like a lecture that they dread or even an easy 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 module work is a very long and unbearable video with simplistic questions that can be answer with common sense. How can there be a way to make a module that can actually be entertaining and educational at the same time.
Another problem that can arise is men can just simply open a new account when they get blocked from using a social game. This is so hard to record if the person is doing this due to faking information and how easy it is to make a new account. (will continue this in draft 2)
I believe if there is a way we can make the module a social environment as well might be the key to the problem. It can be a video game from itself and in order to be able to go back to the actual game you have to go through tough situations where a computer bot can bother you the way you treat the person who reported you. I feel like this would create a sense of understanding to the men that you shouldn’t treat womxn that way and how the environment would be different if you didn’t feel in constant fear or stress of what others are saying about you. This will also prevent people from just reading or seeing a basic unsympathetic module that they will learn nothing from. (Will continue this thought in draft 2)
Having these reporting sites being super on top of review on whether or not these men are harassing womxn or any individual is important. It doesn’t just support the individual being harassed but it also helps the community in general. Allowing men like that within video games allows it to be normalized culture in that community which is even worse than just have one individual being awful.
The way that the gamer consoles can control the way people can make accounts it by making an individual have a gamer ID number the way that one has a state ID number that once they make an account with it they are unable to act as if they are someone else. This prevents spammers and it prevents people from making multiple accounts.
Creating these policies and educating gamers can go a long way when it comes to the social environment of video games and can help people feel more safe within them.