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Professor Gonzalez

ENC 1102

9 March 2023

Annotated Bibliography

Barkema, Clayre. “Video Games and Gender Female Discrimination in the Gaming

Community.” Sosland Journal of Student Writing, 2018,

https://info.umkc.edu/sosland_journal/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/sosland-2018-full-

issue.pdf#page=11

Clayre Barkema’s focus for this article was to describe the female discrimination in the

gaming community. She emphasizes how people are stuck in the mindset that games are for only

men to enjoy and that women are just sex figures to be objectified (Barkema, 1). She analyzes

different videos where players of the game specified, comments on the female leading roles,

noticing how game developers are trying to be more inclusive to their audience (Barkema, 2).

She then provides examples of how men responded to a female in a game and exposes how

derogatory these comments are. Barkema makes the claim that if the gaming industry stopped

objectifying female characters in video games, men would likely not harass the females that they

are playing with (Barkema, 14).

This article was published in 2018, is peer reviewed, and was published by the Sosland

Journal of Student Writing which is an annual publication of essays by student winners from the
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University of Missouri-Kansas City. This source is useful to me because it provides specific

examples of how certain companies are using sexualized women to promote their games and

how female gamers are being stereotyped. It provides statistics of how women are involved and

just as important in the gaming community as men. This source has also informed me about how

some gaming developers are trying to overcome this stereotype and use strong female leading

characters in their games.

Charles, Christopher. “Keeping Quiet: Investigating the Maintenance and Policing of Male-

Dominated Gaming Space.” STARS, 2016,

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6115&context=etd

In this article, the author, Christopher Charles, dives into gaming culture and how it is a

male dominated space. He focuses on how women are being forced to stay silent and take this

abuse from males in the gaming industry (Charles, 5-6). For his study, he conducted a four-day

ethnography where he would observe and interview members who attend or are working at

MegaCon (Charles, 8-11). Throughout the article, Charles discusses how women are being

portrayed as sexual objects or for the “male gaze”, how men either harass or become obsessed

with females once they hear their voice, and how plots to video games rely on the damsel in

distress trope. They also bring up how female artists are being criticized on their gaming history

and the negative aspects that come along with cosplaying as characters with these “perfect” and

sexual body types (Charles, 13-37).

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This article is very credible due to the fact it has been peered review, published in 2016,

and is in the University of Central Florida Library Database. This source will be useful for my

research because it informs me more about how women are being treated, not just in video

games, but the community outside of it, like cosplayers and gaming developers. My research will

focus more on the online communication aspect, however. It will expand more on how women

are treated and the impacts of misogyny that females face. This article helps me further

understand what women go through daily when entering the gaming world.

Delamere, Fern, and Susan Shaw. “‘They See It as a Guy's Game’: The Politics of Gender in

Digital Games.” Taylor & Francis, 2010, https://doi.org/10.1080/14927713.2008.9651411

The article, “They see it as a guy’s game: The politics of gender in digital games”, by

Fern Delamere and Susan Shaw discusses the discrimination that women face in the gaming

industry. They talk about how game developers are using women’s bodies to influence men to

purchase their product and how women are getting verbally abused and criticized about their

gameplay (Delamere and Shaw, 10-13). The authors also explained and provided examples of

how men are sexualizing female players through audio communication and acts within the games

(Delamere and Shaw, 14-15). The source discusses how females are tired of this mistreatment

and how they have created ways to make it easier to avoid this kind of behavior (Delamere and

Shaw, 16-17). A point that is brought up throughout the article is that gaming is for everyone, no

matter your gender, and that it is important to change the social construct of gender stereotypes

(Delamere and Shaw, 20).

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This article is credible and reliable because it was published in 2010, has been peer

reviewed, and was published on the University of Central Florida Library Database. This source

will be useful for my research because it goes more in depth with the audio communication

aspect of gaming and how men use it to harass and seek attention from females. It also brings up

how women are finding ways to prevent or avoid this behavior. For my research, I will be

conducting interviews as well to understand more about this issue from personal experiences. I

will use this source to compare my own findings with and explore further into how these male

actions affect female players.

Kuss, Daria, et al. “To Be or Not to Be a Female Gamer: A Qualitative Exploration of Female

Gamer Identity.” ProQuest, 2022,

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2627528146/fulltextPDF/ECCA076116664511PQ/1?
accountid=10003

This article argues what it is like to be a female in the gaming industry. The authors

conducted their research by interviewing many female gamers and analyzing their results in the

perspectives of female gamers because they as well are women that play video games (Kuss et

al., 3-4). The main points that were brought up in this article was how females identify in games

and the stereotypes involved, how gaming has affected an individual’s mental health and social

skills, the negative qualities that have appeared because of playing games, and what the future

holds for female gamers (Kuss et al., 1-5). The authors discovered that some female gamers were

proud of who they are and did not other people’s opinions stop them from sharing their interests

(Kuss et al., 6). Not only does the article discuss negative aspects of gaming for females, but they
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also show the positive side like being more sociable, bringing people together, and a stress

reliever (Kuss et al., 8).

This article has been peer reviewed, is published in the University of Central Florida

Library Database, and was published in 2022. This source is useful because it has helped me

develop an understanding of how female gamers are treated and how it affects their mental

health. Not only does it show the negative aspects of being a female gamer, but it also shows

some positive ones like being able to find a community and providing an escape from reality. I

will use this knowledge to support my research question by not just seeking out the bad parts

when it comes to female gaming, but also the good. When I conduct my own interviews, I will

compare the results with this source to see if the answers given are similar or if there are some

drastic differences.

Kuznekoff, Jeffery, and Lindsey Rose. “Communication in Multiplayer Gaming: Examining

Player ... - Sage Journals.” SAGE Journals, 2012,

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1461444812458271?

casa_token=Ep4jJT7jAmYAAAAA:T5hslEQb0v5QrKXUDF-

jqCUWl73Tf2xeJJYe3xK6b1M8beqR8lmSQZclP5D0WoW3610XD-dKyTQ

The article, “Communication in multiplayer gaming: Examining player responses to

gender cues” by Jeffrey Kuznekoff and Lindsey Rose, goes into depth on the communication

aspect of video games and how types of responses vary depending on gender. The article

discusses general stereotypes of genders for video game characters and describes how this places
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expectations on how women should behave (Kuznekoff and Rose, 6-10). The authors conducted

a study where they took prerecorded phrases said by a male and female and would play those

audio recordings while in a Halo 3 game. They then analyzed the reactions and responses to

these recordings by the other players in the game and looked at the differences between the male

and female results (Kuznekoff and Rose, 6-10). In this study, they did not focus what was

specifically said but focused on the quantitative data that was collected (Kuznekoff and Rose, 6-

10).

This article is credible because it has been peer reviewed, was published in 2012, and was

published by SAGE Publishing. SAGE Publishing is a global academic publisher of books,

journals, and a growing suite of library products and services. This source will help my research

by expanding my knowledge on how female gamers are verbally abused by male gamers. I will

also use this information to investigate more about how males behave differently when a female

is present in a video game. However, my research will focus more directly on the obsessive and

attention seeking behaviors, rather than just the harmful comments, and how it affects female

gamers. My research with also be in the form of qualitative research rather than quantitative.