Toys for boys? The continued marginalization and participation of women as digital gamers

Crawford, G; Gosling, V

Abstract

This paper develops out of ongoing research into the location and use of digital gaming in practices of everyday life. Specifically this paper draws on a questionnaire based survey of just under four hundred undergraduate students and twenty-three follow up interviews. This paper suggests that the women in this research play digital games significantly less than their male counterparts, and suggests that this is largely due to digital games continuing to be viewed, both culturally and by the gaming industry, as belonging to men. However, this paper suggests that for some women video and computer gaming can be an important social activity, and for others mobile telephone based gaming can offer a less restricted and more accessible leisure activity.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2005
• Deposit Date: Dec 23, 2009
• Journal: Sociological Research Online
• Electronic ISSN: 1360-7804
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 1
• Keywords: Gender, Digital Gaming
• Publisher URL: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/1/crawford.html