Female gamers have long suffered from gender-based online abuse in the gaming community. Apart from commonly observed quitting and gender-masking behaviors from female gamers, this study explores what female gamers understand as sexism, how female gamers react to it, and why they choose certain reactions instead of others. Findings show that female gamers are keenly conscious of normalized sexism in gaming culture, and thus often prioritize preventing personal interaction with strangers online, resulting in their shared preference for gaming with trusted acquaintances, which makes gaming an online-offline juxtaposition. Shouldering gender norms in doubled dimensions of gaming and specific real-life relationships, female gamers thus become reluctant to recognize and confront less violent sexism from male acquaintances. Female gamers’ strategic self-protection, although gaining them relatively safer gaming spaces, also consolidates sexism in gaming, and further suggests gaming as a critical social space for reproducing broader gender inequalities.

中文翻译：

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“他们不是故意伤害的”：女性游戏玩家不愿意承认和面对游戏中的性别歧视，将其作为线上与线下的并列


长期以来，女性游戏玩家在游戏社区中一直遭受基于性别的在线虐待。除了女性游戏玩家常见的戒烟和性别掩盖行为外，本研究还探讨了女性游戏玩家对性别歧视的理解、女性游戏玩家如何反应，以及为什么她们选择某些反应而不是其他反应。研究结果表明，女性游戏玩家敏锐地意识到游戏文化中正常化的性别歧视，因此经常优先考虑防止与在线陌生人进行个人互动，导致她们与值得信赖的熟人共同喜欢玩游戏，这使得游戏成为线上和线下并列。在游戏和特定现实生活关系的双重维度中肩负着性别规范，女性游戏玩家因此不愿意承认和面对来自男性熟人不那么暴力的性别歧视。女性游戏玩家的战略自我保护虽然为她们赢得了相对安全的游戏空间，但也巩固了游戏中的性别歧视，并进一步表明游戏是复制更广泛的性别不平等的关键社会空间。