Female gamers are 4x more likely to be harassed online than men

The sad truth of sexism amongst on line gamers has been laid bare by a new report.

A study published on PriceCharting, which surveyed over 800 online gamers, says that 63.3 per cent of all female participants had been taunted or harassed while playing online.

Common slurs included ‘c*nt’, ‘bitch’, ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ and these were often combined with verbal threats of sexual assault or asking/demanding sexual favours. Weight, appearance and common Western female stereotypes were also common.

Furthermore, 35.8 per cent of females who responded said they had temporarily quit a game because of the sexism they had to endure. 9.6 per cent admitted to quitting a specific game permanently because of the abuse.

Although only 19.4 per cent of women claimed to have felt unsafe because of the sex-based harassment they had suffered, women were nine times more likely than men to feel unsafe in these situations.

79.3 per cent of all respondents – across both genders – believed that sexism is prominent in the games community, with just 7.1 per cent claiming it was not and 13.6 per cent saying they were unsure.

It should be noted that while these issues are obviously a greater concern for women, men are at time also subjected to sexual abuse online, with 15.7 per cent claiming to have received sex-based taunting. This abuse was notably different to that aimed at women, however, with the common theme being an apparent lack of masculinity. ‘Fag’ was the default go-to insult.

The full report can be read here.