User:Kestrada3/sandbox

Countermeasures
In their 2016 analysis of female characters in video games, Lynch, Tompkins, van Driel, & Fritz looked at the frequency of females in lead roles, secondary roles, as well as the level of sexualization of the female characters. They found that from 1992 to 2006 that far more females characters were in secondary roles to that of lead roles, as well as being at higher rates of sexualization. However, from 2007 to 2014, they found that there was a decrease in the sexualization and objectification of females characters in video games, with an influx of positive characteristics such as female characters being portrayed as strong, capable, and attractive, as well as giving these women more character development. These aspects they suspect may attract more women to get into playing video games.

In a study by Tang & Fox in 2016, they looked at if there was any correlation between men's personality and contextual factors and if these factors could predict the men's behaviors and the types of harassment these men would employ as they played video games. Their study found that the men who were categorized as showing signs of being socially dominant and hostile sexism carried out acts of verbal sexual harassment, such as "making sexist comments and joking about rape." These same men were also found to also executed general harassment, such as "swearing at a player or insulting their intelligence or skill," and that general harassment was found more often in those who also showed signs of being involved in the game and those who played games on a weekly basis.

In a 2016 study conducted by Kaye & Pennington, they ultimately propose that the gaming industry should start to integrate systems that promote more positive forms of socializing between the players, provide the ability for players to work on cooperative tasks with other groups while being apart of their own, and that changes like these could help lessen the negative and hostile attitudes that female players face regularly, concluding that these efforts would help reduce the rate at which these hostile behaviors happen.

According to Paaßen, Morgenroth, and Stratemeyer in their 2017 article, they compared how often men identified as gamers compared to that of women. They found that men were more likely to publicly identify as gamers while females felt compelled to either identify as either as female or as a gamer. This lead to their conclusion that these findings reinforce the stereotypes that women cannot be gamers and how that this is certainly detrimental to females who identify themselves as gamers, as women already have negative experiences in the professional spheres of video game culture, especially when compared to that of their male counterparts.

In a study by Read, Lynch, and Matthews in 2018, it was found that men who played as sexualized avatars showed reduced rates of hostile sexism, and that for both men and women it was found that their levels of rape myth acceptance (RMA) was also reduced.