Communications in Humanities Research

- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences


Communications in Humanities Research

Vol. 8, 31 October 2023


Open Access | Article

Discourse and Action: Female Players’ Resistance Against Gender Inequality in Games Through Social Media

Zhirou Li * 1
1 The University of Manchester

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Communications in Humanities Research, Vol. 8, 13-18
Published 31 October 2023. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by EWA Publishing
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Citation Zhirou Li. Discourse and Action: Female Players’ Resistance Against Gender Inequality in Games Through Social Media. CHR (2023) Vol. 8: 13-18. DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/8/20230945.

Abstract

In patriarchal gaming culture, female gamers have limited space for discourse. The establishment of the “Female Gamers’ Association” provides a new channel for female gamers to resist male hegemony in both games and reality through game sharing and discourse criticism. Therefore, this paper tries to explore how female gamers confront male discourses and build their identities through a series of discursive practices around games and gender on social media. This paper analyzes the posts from the “Female Gamers’ Association” group on the social media platform Douban and uses online ethnography for further observation. The study finds that although female gamers have formed a new discursive space and resisted the mainstream gaming environment by creating their own communities, there are still limitations to this resistance, and the active resistance of female gamers also contains elements of passive submission. The study of the “Female Gamers’ Association” provides a clearer understanding of the complexities of female gamers in a male-dominated virtual space and their agency in the face of pressure.

Keywords

female gamers, game community, social media, male gaze

References

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Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
ISBN (Print)
978-1-83558-039-4
ISBN (Online)
978-1-83558-040-0
Published Date
31 October 2023
Series
Communications in Humanities Research
ISSN (Print)
2753-7064
ISSN (Online)
2753-7072
DOI
10.54254/2753-7064/8/20230945
Copyright
31 October 2023
Open Access
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Copyright © 2023 EWA Publishing. Unless Otherwise Stated