COFACE Spanish member, UNAF (Unión de Asociaciones Familiares) has launched the campaign ‘Mutea tu machismo’, which aims to raise awareness among teenagers about sexism in video games and to prevent discrimination and violence against female gamers with macho comments and behaviour.
More than 70% of women admit to having encountered sexism in video games and 36.4% say they have been insulted in the course of an online game, according to the study ‘Gender, gamers and video games. An approach from a gender perspective to the consumption of video games and the situation of female gamers in the sector’, sponsored by the Telefónica Chair of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in collaboration with the CajaCanarias Foundation and La Caixa.
On the other hand, research by the Centre for Research, Mind, Brain and Behaviour of the University of Granada shows how greater sexism against women gamers also leads to a greater defence of beliefs that justify or minimise intimate partner violence, or sexism in general. In addition, men who were more sexist towards female gamers showed a greater tendency to minimise a sexist incident suffered by a female gamer when playing online, also supporting a less severe punishment for players involved in such discrimination.
Given the impact that video games have on the socialisation of adolescents and on their education, UNAF wanted to warn against sexist behaviours that are more likely to be used against female gamers than male gamers.
Watch UNAF’s campaign video
More info here (Spanish).
