By Jamaal Ryan
There’s a strange phenomenon that comes from the expected social
dichotomy of the “social norm” between men and women. When men are assholes,
they get more positive attention, are ostensibly more successful at dating, and
even revered as leaders in some instances. But looking through this patriarchal
lens, women are held to a polarizing standard. Women should be nice, pandering,
and passive in order to align themselves with gender expectations.
These gender differences have been given empirical context
in a study conducted by members of Virginia
Tech, and Ohio & Pennsylvania State Universities. The experimenters played
Modern Warfare 3 on PS3, taking on gender specific monikers such as “Ashley…”
and “John…”. Their performances online varied, but the independent variable was
their online behavior, ranging from spouting phrases such as “nice shot” to “you
suck” before sending out friend requests after matches. The concluding factors
or the dependent variables were the responses to these friend requests, which the
results then reflected that men who were jerks and women who played nice got
more friend request responses than men who played nice and women who were
jerks.
It’s a rather eye opening phenomena that deeply reflects the
attractions, expectations, and even desires of online players. It’s easy to
compare online behavior to high school, since it’s safe to assume that a
profound percentage of console online competitive shooters are dominated by
high schoolers. Remember that douche guy who was loud, obnoxious, and fed off
of bullying others? He was quite popular, right? And though it isn’t as cut and
dry to nail down that high school girls who reflected the same behavior as some
of the more popular boys struggled socially as they had their fair share of
followings too, girls with a more “submissive” attitude were far more socially
successful than submissive boys.
“Nice guys finish last.” That’s a phrase that my friends and
I kicked around when discussing dating in high school and college. The sort of
dickish behavior we see from men is often coupled with dominance, and in the
worst cases, leadership. It is the bullish machismo mentality that one must
steam roll without abandon to get out on top, and men who don’t adhere to this
expectation often have their masculinity questioned. And while women can have
equal success with such behavior, it’s rarely met without resistance. Within the
context of Call of Duty matches, the motivation in accepting a friend request
from a female who played nice is often sexual:
“These differences would
affect others’ reactions when they become aware of a user’s gender, in which
one type of reaction is sending sexual messages to female users.”
We seem to be reduced to our most primitive and most impulsive
form online, drawing hard cut expectations whenever any identifying factor is
revealed in game, whether it alludes to sex, race, religion, or sexual
orientation. In the context of gender, we are most responsive to those who
behave along the lines of our perception of sex, and ignore or actively
distance ourselves from those who violate it:
“The videogame social
environment is quite masculine, therefore male players would behave and expect
very masculine social interactions and the opposite is true for female players,
they should behave submissively or what they think women ought to be. Should a
female player violate these expectations by asserting herself, social
punishments ensue such as questioning her legitimacy and competence as a gamer
. Should a male player violate their masculine expectations, well other men
will denigrate their manhood and competence.”
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