Picture a typical player of a massively multiplayer game such as World of Warcraft and most people will imagine an overweight, solitary male.
But this stereotype has been challenged by a study investigating gender differences among gamers.
The pressure to conform to traditional gender roles might mean that some women are put off activities seen as “masculine”, whereas women who reject traditional gender roles might be more likely to play MMOs such as EverQuest II.
So not only is that pretty cool, demonstrating once again that video games are not evil and won’t turn you into a serial kill, but that taught gender roles, which the Pope recently erroneously claimed needed to be saved from ‘teh gays and transgendereds,’ are largely responsible for feminine exclusion from video games.
I have said before (but probably not on here) and I’ll say it again, gender roles are crap, and self-determination is the key to the flowering of human evolution in today’s world. Self-determination will be extremely important once retroactive genetic and biotechnic innovations allow us to alter our bodies for our environments at will.
Don’t think it’ll happen? I’m willing to bet on it.
Perhaps in support of this the survey revealed an unusually high level of bisexuality among the women who took part in the study – over five times higher than the general population.
Missed that the first time through. Pretty hot.