Gendered Insults in Gaming: Equating Inferiority to the Female Body
I’m somewhat new to PC games. I got my start with Heroes of Newerth beta in 2009, and somehow I’ve always stuck to the game, despite it being known for its notoriously toxic community and being constantly berated by other MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas) communities — but that’s a whole other story. Prior to this I only played handheld gaming consoles, so I had very little experience or intercommunications with human others, nor had I really thought about the sexism that has prevailed in gaming designs and within the gaming population. My parents had always told me playing video games was a “boy’s thing” and from what I had seen I really believed that it was just another male-dominated field that girls shouldn’t step into. Hearing and reading reactions in chat from other gamers in real-time had been a new phenomenon six years ago, but after all these years there was one thing that remains constant in the conversations between players: gendered insults.
With any PC or console gaming, there are learning curves and differing experiences amongst gamers, ranging from beginners to plus-year veterans. Interactions between players and fans create a sense of community, but like with any social interaction combined with a pool of varying opinions and skill, there can sometimes be some animosity. Like, and not limited to:
“You’re a f***ing pussy! Don’t be a cunt. Must be sand in your vagina.”
While most of the times, these comments are not directed at me, I sit there uncomfortable, cringing… and to be honest, I didn’t really know why or how to express the discomfort I felt until I was more acquainted with the language presented in my field of study. The more I understood the conditions I’ve faced as an Asian-American woman, the more I wanted to understand these labels that defined me. Most of the players I have encountered in-game had been male; there were rare occasions, there was a female voice in the mix. Not that there weren’t any women playing, but with the continual stigma of female gamers, it is really rare they would reveal their gender — other than it being irrelevant to gameplay. Being in Ethnic Studies and exploring the complexities of one’s identity through intersectionality — how the various folds of race, class, gender are affected and oppressed by institutional laws and practices— I was able to understand that the persisting hegemony of our society is heteronormative patriarchy. These structures are so instilled in our culture that even as a woman, I hadn’t known I was participating in it. The more I was involved in these games, I wondered, “What was so wrong with the female body that it was utilized to tease someone, to the point that it became insulting for a man to be called a woman’s genitalia?”. What I had also noticed was that it was used insultingly amongst men more than women.
In the words of Simone de Beauvoir, “In the mouth of a man the epithet female has the sound of an insult.” Words often used to describe, or are associated to, the female and her body are transformed to derogatory words and insults between males. The use of gendered insults is so prevalent that it has become a norm in daily vernacular, not just in the gaming community, but in public institutions. In insinuating weakness in a male player, some men would associate them to a vagina. Some may argue that the phrase “Don’t act like a pussy” refers to the timid manner of a small cat, or “to act like a scaredy-cat”. But it is becoming more and more evident today that the word is attributed to the woman, the feminine; the notion of subservience and inferiority of female that exists in a player with poor skill. This is in contrast to perceptions of male power and “natural” abilities.
In trying to avert my use of insults that would signify women and/or women’s genitalia, I started to reference male genitalia — pretty much anyone became a “dick”. Consequently, my choice of insult then became an attack on males and male bodies. In doing so, I made two terrible mistakes. I was reducing a human being to their sexual organs. I reinforced the idea that words can replace human entities and their attributes. Secondly, my actions worked to maintain the notion of binary gender because it disregarded males who don’t fit into what I perceive as being “toxic” masculinity, and those who don’t identify as being male, but have biologically male genitalia.
Am I calling for an end to insults? Well, I’d still rage and call someone a tater tot (they’re delicious though), so not entirely. What I’m really calling for is a change in how we react to people in negative situations, in game and in life. Call someone a vegetable you hate or inanimate objects you find useless in your life.
Of course, there’s always the option of being kind to one another.
